>>5707986
You have to wait even longer, until the Hokage makes a call to Konohamaru. He seems like he’s making ready to call the match without Boruto ever showing up. But even as he starts to clear his throat, he pauses.

Both Boruto-kun and Uchiha Sasuke-san appear in dramatic fashion, with a literal gust of wind and fluttering leaves. Uchiha Sasuke-san glances over top of his student’s head. “I hope we’re not too late.”

“You inherited Kakashi-sensei’s bad habits,” Konohamaru-sensei grumbles. “Please refrain from passing them on to Boruto-kun too.”

Before Boruto-kun can say anything, you walk over to him and headbutt him in the face.

“What the heck!?” he demands, clutching his nose. “That hurt, ya know!”

“Quit complaining!” you snap. “Do you have any idea how rude it is to make your opponent wait for something like this!?”

“Okay, okay, I get it!” Boruto insists. “Sheesh!”

“Well then,” Konohamaru-sensei muses. “If that’s all settled, the next match will be Izuno Wasabi versus Uzumaki Boruto. Are you ready?”

Boruto smirks, and you pop your right shoulder with a quick stretch.

“Let the match begin!”

Boruto immediately reaches to retrieve some sort of thrown weapon from his drop thigh pouch. At the same time you…

>Unseal shuriken into your hands, beating Boruto-kun to the first strike.
>Weave signs for an earth release technique, creating cover and concealment.
>Activate your clan’s specialty technique using a faster method you created.
>Other?

>>5707989
>>Unseal shuriken into your hands, beating Boruto-kun to the first strike.

>>5707989
>Activate your clan’s specialty technique using a faster method you created.

>>5707989
>>Activate your clan’s specialty technique using a faster method you created.

Time to show off

>>5707989
>>Activate your clan’s specialty technique using a faster method you created.

>>5707989
>1d6, DC 10
>Taking the first three
>SP: 2/2

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>5708373

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>5708373
Go Cat-girl!

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>5708373

>>5708373
Ordinarily, you have to admit, you might have gotten your butt kicked right off the bat by how Boruto-kun starts the match. He charges forward and forms a rasengan in his right hand - the most powerful ninjutsu you know of that by nature requires no hand seals, perfect for striking an opponent trying to use any sort of technique that requires a setup. But he’s not really attacking you with this strategy. No, what he’s really doing is attacking you as you were in the academy.

Big mistake.

You meet his charge, pulling your hood swiftly over your head. “Nekokaburi!”

The pain of claws slashing his back doesn’t seem to be what Boruto-kun is noticing most in the moments after you clash. Instead it’s the surprise that comes across clear as day in his face.

You flex your chakra claws menacingly, glaring out from under the edge of your hood. “Nice try, Boruto-kun. But I know my clan’s techniques better than you, and I know their weaknesses.”

And so, knowing what you do, you redesigned the technique so that you can activate it just by raising your hood, which has the fūinjutsu seal marked onto the inside. “Next move?”

Boruto-kun tries to take a moment to consider that exact question - a moment you don’t let him have.

“Alright, then I’ll go!”

Your immediately start to pressure him in close quarters, forcing him back with the ferocity of your attacks. He uses shadow clones to give himself a little extra space, which you immediately take from him by unsealing a spread of shuriken unsealed from the markings on your cuffs, which partly cover your palms thanks to the holes through them for your thumbs. He manages to hold off that assault pretty well, though that’s all he seems able to do right now.

In a complete desperation move he starts weaving hand seals, accepting the fact that you’re going to slash him at least once to do something he needs to get done. That slash comes across his shoulder, before he can stomp with one foot and propel himself backward into the air using a blast of wind-transformed chakra that kicks up a cloud of dust.

It would be dumb to chase him into the air as he prepares to weave more hand seals, at least not without further preparation. But you also know he has the lightning release, which may be what he falls back on here, so you’d be wary of relying on earth release now.

>Go big or go home. Use this opening while he’s setting up to beckon the cat-god.
>He can’t dodge like this. Unseal a bunch more shuriken to ruin his whole day.
>You have a new technique you can use to end this match right here, right now.
>Other?

>>5708960
>He can’t dodge like this. Unseal a bunch more shuriken to ruin his whole day.
>He might pull something fancy and use a shadow clone to dodge mid-air, so aim for that too

>>5708960
>>He can’t dodge like this. Unseal a bunch more shuriken to ruin his whole day.

>>5708960
>You have a new technique you can use to end this match right here, right now.

It would be funny to see Boruto beaten in seconds

>>5708973
We don't want to give away everything before our match with sumire though

>>5708996
This isn't a single elimination bracket, Sumire's already qualified for promotion and this is the only fight Wasabi is going to get.

>>5709006
that doesn't mean we can't spar afterwards!

>>5708960
>>You have a new technique you can use to end this match right here, right now.

>>5708960
>Go big or go home. Use this opening while he’s setting up to beckon the cat-god.

>>5708960
>>Go big or go home. Use this opening while he’s setting up to beckon the cat-god.

>>5708960
>>Go big or go home. Use this opening while he’s setting up to beckon the cat-god.

>>5708960
>Wasabi is beginning to feel like a cat god
>1d6, first three
>DC 10
>SP: 2/2

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>5709893

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>5709893

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>5709893
Okay fingers crossed

>>5709893
This is a perfect opportunity - Boruto-kun is probably trying to set up his ‘Boruto Stream’, a combination ninjutsu he likes to use with his own shadow clones. The shadow clones keep him covered against any sort of shuriken-based counterattack - the two behind him are there to use an air palm technique each to propel him closer at high speeds, though they can also use the same technique to shield him from projectiles. You’ve never seen him do it but you know he can just because that’s how the elemental release he’s using works.

So you wait until Boruto-kun confirms your assumption by spawning a pair of shadow clones, then pull out a scroll from one of the two pouches at your hips and unroll it in a wide arc in front of yourself. This technique, unlike the regular Nekokaburi and your further evolution of it, still requires a scroll.

“Nekogami Hyōi!” you roar, placing your hand on a fūinjutsu seal marked with the character for ‘Bobtail’. “Bakeneko!”

Boruto-kun may have a pretty strong lightning release technique in his fist, and he may have the speed from having been shot forward by his clones. But this chakra cloak is something completely different - an avatar of sorts, maybe not as tall as a mountain like your clan’s old stories suggest, but easily thirty feet tall with a paw big enough that it hits Boruto’s whole body like he’s just slammed into a brick wall.

Honestly, you can’t expect anyone your age except for perhaps Shiki-kun to simply absorb that sort of a beating. Not just the blow from your cat’s paw, but from slamming into the wall of the arena - he probably took some of the impact out of that by using his lightning release technique to blast it first, essentially reducing its rigidity at the last second so he’d crash into loose gravel rather than a solid wall, but it’s a bad enough hit that his shadow clones disperse automatically.

Boruto-kun’s response is a different ninjutsu that comes just as the dust starts to settle. “Suiton: Suijinheki!”

The surging wall is a fairly impressive amount of water for a technique used without a large body of it already nearby, but the problem with that of course is that to produce that much he’d have to have used up a lot of his own chakra.

You weave hand seals within your own avatar to respond. “Doton: Chidōkaku!”

The technique raises just enough of your surroundings up above the water level so that when Boruto-kun sends a surge of electricity into it you’re safely above the threat. That combination had to have taken a toll on his chakra reserves - you’re not exactly feeling refreshed right now yourself, for that matter, but he’s been using even more taxing combinations one after the other even while taking quite a physical hammering from your attacks.

Whatever he does next will be his last move, you figure.
>1/2

>>5710097
What is he going to do?

It seems like your clan’s ‘ultimate’ technique simply operates at a scale that Boruto-kun can’t match, even with his elemental ninjutsu being as good as they are - if none of them can really be used at an advantage they just roll off you like water off a duck. And none of this is even your own personal fighting style, which you’re fairly certain that Boruto-kun couldn’t beat like this either.

But you’re also certain that he’s not about to give up just because things look bad right now. That’s not the kind of guy he is. So what is he going to do to try leveling the playing field against you?

Boruto-kun delays. He considers. And eventually, he makes his decision.

Three fūma-style shuriken burst from the cloud of dust floating around the hole in the wall where he hit, each crackling with lightning-transformed chakra. Not bad, but having seen something like this back when Shiki-kun first joined the academy you’ve considered what to do against an attack like this. You sacrifice the million-ryō coin that your cat avatar is usually created with, swinging it a bit like an open fan to deflect the weapons, which are a powerful enough attack to destroy the shaped chakra coin in exchange.

As they pass behind you one of the shuriken bursts to reveal Boruto-kun himself, holding a much smaller rasengan - smaller, but somehow more powerful than usual. You know full well what he’s trying to do, and so just as he thinks he’s landed a critical hit to change the pace of the battle you dispel the cat avatar.

The look of shock on his face as he quite suddenly goes from landing a blow dead on target to missing completely is priceless. It’s almost enough to prevent you from grabbing him round the ankle and pile-driving him into the arena floor.

… almost.

The dazed look in his eyes is enough to tell you and Konohamaru-sensei that Boruto-kun’s had it, though you don’t let your guard down for even an instant until Konohamaru-sensei says the words.

“Uzumaki Boruto can no longer continue,” he declares in a loud voice. “The winner is Izuno Wasabi.”

Your family bursts into cheers, though they’re hardly alone. Sumire is applauding vigorously from the stands, though you can also hear a loud whoop from Shiki-kun’s direction. You can feel your face burning a little as you withdraw to the stands.
>1d4, taking the second roll

Rolled 4 (1d4)

>>5710957

Rolled 2 (1d4)

>>5710957

>>5710957
And now 1d3, first roll only

Rolled 2 (1d3)

>>5710966

>>5710966
The final two matches will be:
>Inojin vs Sarada
>Chocho vs Tsubaki

>>5710969
You are Uzumaki Shiki, and you’ve taken a break from your own training to return to Konohagakure for a few reasons. The main reason is that your teammates are taking their chūnin examination finals today – Sumire had basically nobody to cheer for her, and so you came in part to be loud enough to qualify as a ‘cheering section’ on your own. She was fighting Enko-kun, who you also had to cheer for to a lesser extent, but you don’t think anyone got it confused who you were really here to support. You were also here to cheer for your cousins – mostly Sarada, but to a degree Boruto-kun too.

Sumire bested Enko-kun by using one of her poison-based techniques, while your other teammate Wasabi managed to completely overpower Boruto-kun with her clan’s ‘ultimate’ technique – a giant chakra avatar in the shape of a cat. You knew that was coming of course, and you suspected that in the end Boruto wasn’t going to have something to beat it, but he did at least give it a wholehearted effort and even pulled out a desperation move at the end that may have actually worked against Wasabi. That is, had she not also been expecting him to do something like that.

Now there are two more matches, the first of which determines the second – Sarada will be fighting Inojin-kun, and then Tsubaki-kun will be fighting Chōchō-kun. The former is… well, you hate to write Inojin-kun off but it’s almost a foregone conclusion. Sarada shares your bloodline, but also has the sharingan – if they hadn’t screwed themselves early in the last exams she’d have been a serious contender in the finals. Inojin-kun’s techniques are eclectic but mostly useful, it’s just a question of whether he can string them together into a coherent plan – and even then it’d be an uphill battle against, it must be stressed, an Uzumaki with the sharingan.

As for the final match, you expect that to be closer – assuming it doesn’t end in seconds. Tsubaki-kun’s kenjutsu is extremely good, and she knows full well how to fight against shinobi using iai. If she can land a clean, accurate blow on Chōchō-kun that’s probably the end of the match right there. But if Chōchō-kun can get any momentum going it will become progressively more difficult for Tsubaki-kun to finish the match on her own terms.

In any event, the first match has to come first, and it starts aggressively on both sides. Both fighters know to keep moving – Sarada knows that Inojin-kun’s clan has a technique that can be used to implant his mind into an opponent’s body, which will essentially be an instant win in this situation. But it’s a risky technique to use, and Inojin-kun must also realize that if he accidentally makes eye contact with Sarada at any point it’s basically going to be an instant win for her instead.
>1/?

>>5711427
Oh my god, i forgot sarada is half uzumaki in this timeline.
Oh fuck, oh jesus.

She's a little natural-born naori. That's cheatin'!
She doesn't even have an absentee father this time around, does she?!

>>5711427
In any event, the first match has to come first, and it starts aggressively on both sides. Both fighters know to keep moving – Sarada knows that Inojin-kun’s clan has a technique that can be used to implant his mind into an opponent’s body, which will essentially be an instant win in this situation. But it’s a risky technique to use, and Inojin-kun must also realize that if he accidentally makes eye contact with Sarada at any point it’s basically going to be an instant win for her instead.

Inojin-kun uses his dad’s technique, bringing waves of tiny colorful birds to life after drawing them on a scroll. They’re always fragile, even more so than the average shadow clone, and so Sarada has no difficulty using the Uchiha clan’s shurikenjutsu techniques and her impeccable aim to counter the ink-birds just as easily as Inojin-kun created them.

“I’m not finished yet!” he insists, sending a large creature based on a fossil sea creature flying low along the ground towards Sarada, who simply cuts it down the middle with a fūma shuriken that keeps flying towards Inojin-kun beyond. Inojin-kun dodges, but ends up getting grazed on his leg and shoulder anyway when Sarada pulls a super-fine wire connected to her shuriken to make it pull apart in the middle, turning it into four flying blades instead of just the one weapon.

That’s a weakness that you identified with his fighting style, and one that you’re willing to guess Sarada also picked up on - both his techniques require him to commit fully to performing them. The mind transfer requires perfect setup or it fails and he loses, and the super beast scroll requires the use of specific tools and both his hands. That means they’re really easy to interrupt with a surprise attack, and they both largely prevent him from having his tantō ready to protect himself.

He abandons the scroll, keeping his brush in his support hand as he draws his blade. That’s it, that’s something that finally approaches a self-conscious employment of strategy.

He lasts for a few minutes as Sarada closes in on him, using spinning fūma shuriken as close-range weapons - your understanding is that this is a style her grandmother used to use. Quite simply Inojin-kun has no means of stopping her, and so it’s only a matter of time before he accidentally catches her eye and she places him under genjutsu.

Eventually, it becomes clear that Inojin-kun has no hope of winning and that continuing will only cause undue injury. So Konohamaru-sensei calls the match there.
>Next match: Chocho vs Tsubaki

>>5711537
Now this is a match you wanted to see the outcome of, much more so than the fight between Inojin-kun and your cousin.

“I’d wanted to fight Sarada,” Chōchō-kun admits. “Not that you won’t be a challenge or anything, just that Sarada and I’ve been friends for a long time - and we haven’t really trained together in a long time.”

“I understand,” Tsubaki-kun bows politely. “I too had an opponent I wished to face - but he passed the exams last time.”

“Shiki-kun?”

Tsubaki-kun nods once. “His style of kenjutsu is supposed to be most remarkable, and similar to our own. That is why I wished to face him in a serious match, even if I lost - which I admit would have been possible.”

“Even if you lost, hm?” Chōchō-kun muses.

“Defeat can be the best teacher, if you can survive it,” Tsubaki-kun observes.

The fight begins, as every kenjutsu match does, with the sword in the sheath. Tsubaki-kun elects to leave her sword right there, at least at first, dealing with her opponent’s attacks without using any lethal techniques. For her part, Chōchō-kun actually fights rather well - using her clan’s partial-body expansion technique to launch fairly slow but also noticeably powerful attacks that force even a skilled samurai like Tsubaki-kun to answer them. Even the technique where she rips up a bunch of rocks and launches them through the air seems like it’s putting some amount of pressure on Tsubaki-kun.

That said, you know what Tsubaki-kun is waiting for - either a clear mistake, or an attempt to commit to a more demanding ninjutsu technique. If she sees a cue either is imminent, the response will be a powerful iai slash.

And that moment comes sooner than you might have expected.

The position of Chōchō-kun’s arms, the way she chooses to attack, and the spacing she falls into all seem to line up to present a clear target - at least, in Tsubaki-kun’s mind everything seems to have fallen into place. And ‘in Tsubaki-kun’s mind’ is the only place where that determination matters for what she’s obviously been preparing.

“Hiken: Fūsetsugiri!”
>1/2

>>5712578
The result is nothing short of devastating.

All the chakra that Tsubaki-kun has been loading into her blade, constrained by the saya around it, is unleashed as a massive shockwave that just about fills the arena. For someone whose speed isn’t exactly her strongest point like Chōchō-kun, you’re certain that she never even had a chance to respond to it.

The shockwave sends her crashing into the wall of the arena, and although you can faintly sense her chakra she can’t manage to get back to her feet.

Tsubaki-kun for her part remains in seigan, vigilant for any sign of a trick on her opponent’s part.

It doesn’t take long for Konohamaru-sensei to call the match, and only then does Tsubaki-kun sheath her sword and walk away, slowly, as though completely exhausted.
>2/2
>tbc

>>5712844
Vote called:
>Wasabi
>Sumire

>>5713107
Also in case anyone forgot, this will be a vote for who to play as in the next event.

>>5713107
>Wasabi

>>5713107
Wasabi

>>5713107
>>Sumire

>>5713107
>>Sumire

>>5713107
>Sumire

>>5713107
>>Wasabi

Alright, I flipped a coin and I'll be continuing with Wasabi tomorrow.

>>5713639
You are Izuno Wasabi, and in a few weeks it will have been two years since your team was at full strength.

Since then you’ve gone on a few missions together with Sumire and Hanabi-sensei, but you’ve only seen Shiki a few times since your promotion to chūnin - he tends not to stay long, disappearing as quickly as he appears. For most of the time you’ve actually started working with Konoha’s police force as a specialist, where your skills in tracking dangerous fugitives and identifying contraband have proven invaluable in their daily duties.

You’re not completely sure what Sumire has been doing: although you know part of it involves emergency poison control and industrial decontamination efforts, you suspect there’s something else that she’s not allowed to talk about. If you had to guess, she’s probably involved in developing new poisons and antidotes for the village as part of ongoing, more or less secret measures. While the new order is more or less founded on the assumption that villages aren’t going to do that sort of thing anymore, it’s pretty much an open secret that it’s still happening as part of the political posturing that has continued after the last great war.

So when you get called out to meet with Hanabi-sensei in a spare room at the Academy building, you’re a little surprised. Sumire is there to greet you as well.

“So it’s gotta be bad,” you grumble. “If we’re getting the old team back together like this?”

Hanabi-sensei nods. “Although you’re mistaken on one thing - the ‘team’ for this mission will be the two of you. I will be on a different, albeit parallel, mission of my own.”

“Does this have to do with the recent developments in the Land of Water?” Sumire asks curiously.

“Yeah, I heard somethin’ about that,” you agree. “Border patrol and customs have been on high alert since yesterday.”

Hanabi-sensei begins to explain. “There was a terrorist attack yesterday - ANBU has discerned that a clan of pirates called the Funato, which we thought was destroyed five years ago, has managed to regroup. They’re the ones responsible for the attack, as well as for springing their leader from a secure facility in the Land of Water."

“How bad is it?” you ask.

“Bad enough that there’s a chance of a major civil war,” Hanabi-sensei tells you. “Your orders aren’t to get involved in that - we have two teams in the Land of Water right now, and your job is to help them extract. My mission will be to mediate negotiations between the two factions."
>1/?

>>5714113
“Which two teams?” Sumire asks.

“Teams 3 and 5,” Hanabi-sensei informs you with a frown.

Ah… so Sarada-kun’s team and Denki-kun’s team. The last six months have seen a real shakeup in your classmates’ teams, starting with Tsubaki-kun’s return to the Land of Iron and her replacement with a transfer student from the Land of Sound (who you’ve only met when you processed him for entry into the village). A lot of your classmates are due for promotion - Team 3 was off on a mission for the most recent one, where Denki-kun managed to barely eke out a win against Inojin-kun and Chōchō-kun took down Iwabē-kun in two fiercely contested matches.

“What sort of missions were they on?” you ask.

“Team 3 was escorting a member of the Research department to open a new powerplant,” Hanabi-sensei tells you. “Team 5 was assisting research and development of new technological puppets meant for high-risk mining operations.”

“We leave in one hour. Meet me at the rail station before then.”

…

The trip to the coast is scheduled by way of a direct rapid train, so you get there in the same day and immediately board a ship heading into the Land of Water - a ship, you notice, that has way fewer people aboard than it normally should.

Early in the morning you part ways with Hanabi-sensei, who wishes you luck before continuing on to Kirigakure, and disembark at a smaller island where you’re supposed to meet your contact - a tall young woman with sparkling green eyes, blonde hair worn pulled back, and sharpened teeth, wearing the headband of Kirigakure on her forehead and a pair of odd but familiarly-shaped swords at her waist.

“Kurosuki Buntan-san,” Sumire greets the woman. “Am I right in thinking you are our contact?”

“That’s right!” she flashes you a toothy grin. “Looks like you’re not just brats anymore, huh?”

It shouldn’t be that hard to tell - you’re wearing the standard-issue green flak jacket, albeit with the same billowy shorts and mesh undershirt you always wore as a genin, and even a similar hood. Sumire now dresses much like the ANBU do, albeit with one wide sleeve that covers the revolving senbon launcher on her left wrist.
>2/3

>>5714147
“Well, you haven’t changed much,” you frown. “So what’s your role in all this?”

“I’m gonna help you save your little friends,” Buntan-san insists. “It may not be fighting on the frontlines like I’d wanted, but Shiki-kun asked me nicely so it’s not like I could refuse.”

“Shiki asked you to join us?” Sumire asks, beating you to the question.

Buntan-san nods. “Yeah, he’s dealin’ with somethin’ real annoying right now, so he can’t join you yet. But he’ll be along when he gets the chance.”

>So how are we going to locate Teams 3 and 5? Do you have intel to share?
>We’ll track down whichever team should be closest, then work together.
>We’ll help Team 5 extract first, then track down Team 3 to help them out.
>Other?

>>5714252
>>We’ll track down whichever team should be closest, then work together.

>>5714252
>>We’ll track down whichever team should be closest, then work together.

>>5714252
>>So how are we going to locate Teams 3 and 5? Do you have intel to share?

>>5714252
>We’ll track down whichever team should be closest, then work together.

>>5714252
>>So how are we going to locate Teams 3 and 5? Do you have intel to share?
I wonder how Butan is doing, she is part of the swordsmen of the mist for over 2 years now.
Maybe the village and its elders finally got used to her?

>>5714252
“Am I right in thinking that you have at least a general idea of where each of the two teams will be?” Sumire asks.

Buntan-san nods once. “Yeah, I do.”

“Then we should head towards whichever one is closer,” you decide. “It’ll be easier to get everyone out if we’re together, right?”

“Stands to reason,” Buntan-san agrees. “And the closer team happens to be the one I think needs the most help anyway.”

“Which team would that be?”

“Denki-kun’s,” Buntan-san tells you quickly.

That tracks. While you know that Team 5 works best when they’re together, you also know that individually they wouldn’t be able to fight well at the chūnin level - and it’s clearly that metric Buntan-san is using. Perhaps it’s not entirely fair, but you have to silently admit that in a situation like this individual combat ability and raw power are hardly irrelevant.

“Where are they?”

“A place called Dotō island,” Buntan-san tells you. “We can reach it by boat.”

“Then we should get started,” Sumire insists curtly. “Somehow I doubt this situation will do anything other than deteriorate, at least for a while.”

“You ain’t kidding,” Buntan-san sighs.

…

The boat that Kirigakure has provided is small, but moves at a pretty good speed - which is limited so as to avoid drawing too much attention. Evidently these ‘Funato’ pirates are increasingly active in some of the waters around the Land of Water, and thanks to the fact that Dotō island’s economy revolves around gold mining this is one particular hot spot.
>1/2

>>5715105
“Sooo…” you begin awkwardly, having gone below with Buntan-san and Sumire to avoid being seen in case you run into a Funato boat. “You’re doing well.”

“I am,” Buntan-san confirms. “Naori-dono finally passed the Kiba on to me bout… two years ago now. Big ceremony and everything.”

“And since then?” Sumire asks curiously.

“Missions,” she shrugs. “Lotta escort jobs. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised, lotta daimyo and their families out there willing to pay extra for one of the Seven Swords - sometimes for good reason.”

“You two?”

“Can’t really talk about it,” Sumire admits. “I keep busy though.”

“I get detached off to the police,” you shrug. “Lots of searching for contraband, tracking fugitives, that sorta stuff.”

“Any of ‘em dangerous?”

“There was a serial killer last week.”

“Neat.”

The deckhand, one of two men responsible for sailing this boat, pokes his head in on you. “Captain thinks we’ve got a Funato patrol - keep hidden and keep your mouths shut, okay? They don’t see anything, we can probably just go right past. But if we get in a fight…”

“They go missing,” Sumire completes the thought.

“An probably miss a check-in,” Buntan-san grumbles. “Shit. Means we really shouldn’t fight ‘em.”

>1d6
>best three of four

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5715151

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>5715151

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>5715151

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>5715151

>>5715151
There’s nothing in the world that makes you feel the need to sneeze like knowing that you have to not sneeze at all costs – in fact right now, you need to make no sound at all for this to work out, so it’s all the more difficult.

“So what’ve you even been catchin’ out here?” a rough male’s voice demands of the captain up top.

“Fugu wherever we can get it,” the captain replies, “but anago’s a steady seller too. So when that’s all we can get I know I’m not usually fussed.”

Must not sneeze… must not sneeze…

“So we’re not gonna steal anything from these guys?” you hear one of the pirates ask the other.

Must not… make… rookie… mistake…

“Nah,” the other pirate answers. “Besides not havin’ anything to steal, guy’s doing honest work.”

“Yeah, good point.”

Hold…

“Alright, you have a good rest of your day,” the first pirate tells the captain.

“So you’re not going to rob me?” the captain asks.

“Maybe some other time.”

Hold it in… just a little… longer…

Even Sumire and Buntan-san are watching in apprehension.

“Alright, let’s get out of here.”

Oh thank everything holy.

At the last second your eyes widen, and Sumire and Buntan-san immediately cover your nose at the same instant. So you BARELY avoid tipping your enemies off to your presence before they get off the boat. Only when you hear the sounds of their motor fading into the ever-present background noise of the waves and the wind do you know that it’s clear above.

You wait for a second. Then two.

“So what, you’re not gonna sneeze now?” Buntan-san narrows her eyes.

You consider it for a second longer. “I guess not?”

“… great.”
>1/2

>>5716017
The rest of your journey is uneventful after that near-miss with the pirate gang, and in the middle of the night you reach your objective – Dotō island. The moon is waning and there’s some patchy high clouds, meaning that in terms of conditions for infiltration things are about average: neither particularly advantageous nor hopeless, if you’re careful about it.

“Do you have a plan?’ Sumire asks Buntan-san.

She shakes her head. “Nope. I was just gonna go with whatever you guys felt comfortable with – my preference is a straight fight but that might not be the best idea, so I could also do some sneaking.”

“So it all depends on what we feel suits us best?” you ask to confirm.

“Pretty much, yeah.”

>In that case, we’ll make an obvious attack, draw the Funato into Sumire’s poison and crush them.
>If we move fast we can probably run over the water and start scouting the situation on the island.
>We should approach underwater, then find Team 5. The less chance of being engaged the better.
>Other?

>>5716801
>In that case, we’ll make an obvious attack, draw the Funato into Sumire’s poison and crush them.

>>5716801
>>In that case, we’ll make an obvious attack, draw the Funato into Sumire’s poison and crush them.

>>5716801
>In that case, we’ll make an obvious attack, draw the Funato into Sumire’s poison and crush them.

>>5716801
>1d6, best three of four

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>5717004

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>5717004

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>5717004

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5717004

>>5717004
“These guys seem pretty aggressive,” you muse.

“Definitely true,” Buntan-san nods in agreement.

“And not particularly bright,” you continue.

“Fortunately, yeah.”

“So they’ll engage immediately if they spot us,” you guess.

“Absolutely,” Buntan-san confirms. “Where’s this going?”

“Poison,” Sumire realizes calmly. “This is going to end in poison.”

“Okay,” Buntan-san frowns. “How?”

“Clouds of it woven into fog,” Sumire explains. “One of my specialties is a technique that continuously applies antidotes to most of my poisons. I put one on your back, we draw them into the poison fog, and take them all down in one concerted effort.”

After a moment, that shark-like grin comes back. “Alright, I like it!”

…

After observing for a while at a distance around the coast of the island, you choose to approach into a small harbor which looks to serve the main settlement. The fog rolls in courtesy of Sumire and Buntan-san’s efforts, offering you some concealment as you approach across the surface of the water. The Funato pirates who have been holed up in the town wait until you get in closer before throwing shuriken and kunai before counter-charging – perfect.

Sumire pops a handful of poisoned smoke bombs as you get into combat, with your movements across the surface of the harbor focused less on advancing and more on forcing the Funato to either chase you into the poison smoke or to engage inside it entirely. Here and there between engagements, in which you always find yourself far outnumbered, you throw the odd smoke bomb as well.
>1/2

>>5717340
By the time the ‘battle’ enters its third minute you’re already watching Funato men who have barely even taken a punch having to withdraw, retching and heaving. Those who stay start to seem uncoordinated and physically weakened - like the symptoms of heat stroke, almost. A very few manage to hold out a little longer, and Buntan-san personally takes it upon herself to silence them.

“It’s working like a damn charm!” she grins as the battlefield clears - a few men were cut down by Buntan-san, a few more were more badly roughed up in the fight before managing to get to shore, while three look like they didn’t manage to make it back to shore and drowned face-down in the harbor. “Though we’ve got more prisoners than I was expecting. Not a fan of that.”

>Hey, it’s not our civil war. You just follow whatever orders or instincts you’re following.
>These are the supposedly super dangerous pirates? They’re too lame to bother with now.
>We should interrogate them, then make a clean sweep looking for any of their friends.
>Other?

>>5717364
>>Hey, it’s not our civil war. You just follow whatever orders or instincts you’re following.

>>5717364
>>We should interrogate them, then make a clean sweep looking for any of their friends.

>>5717364
>We should interrogate them, then make a clean sweep looking for any of their friends.

>>5717364
>1d6, best three of four

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>5717694

>>5717694

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>5717694

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>5717694

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>5717694

>>5717694
“We should interrogate the survivors,” you insist. “We get anything from them it makes it easier to make a clean sweep of any of the rest of ‘em.”

“That’s a good point, I think,” Sumire agrees.

It seems that Buntan-san isn’t as convinced. “If that’s how you wanna play this, just be careful. These Funato guys are nuts.”

You take that warning, but do nothing with it in any immediate sense. That turns out to be a mistake after you approach one of the Funato pirates who seems to be getting back to his feet.

“You there,” Sumire declares loudly. “Surrender now and you will be treated fairly according to…”

The man doesn’t even let her finish, drawing and throwing a kunai that Sumire is forced to block by swiftly drawing her own tantō. The response he gets comes almost instantly from Buntan-san, who uses one of the Kiba blades to slice cleanly through his head.

“The hell!?” you demand.

“I told you,” Buntan-san counters. “These guys are nuts… I’ve seen more than one blow himself up when cornered.”

True enough, another of the Funato pulls out an explosive tag that Sumire shoots out of his hand with a senbon from her hidden launcher, detonating it right in his face. The fighting just picks up again, with the Funato showcasing a wild intensity that borders on outright suicidal. After having to beat a good number of the Funato a second time, you’re left with the ones who were either too badly wounded or exposed to too much poison to be able to renew their attacks.

That’s when the locals start to come out, a few at a time, to see how things have been playing out. Many of them seem surprised to find that the men who took over their town have been defeated so soundly. In retrospect, it shouldn’t have surprised you when they started showing up with rakes, pickaxes, and more than a few actual pitchforks.

“What do you think you’re doing?” you ask a man carrying a pickaxe in one hand and a lit lantern in the other.

“These men have been nothing but trouble since they got here!” he insists angrily. “They’ve stolen from us - taken our food, mined our gold using our own equipment. They’ve beaten our elders just for getting in their way. They’ve killed men who resisted, they’ve beaten women and children. And now it’s time for them to pay us back in kind!”
>1/2

>>5718021
based village justice
fuck these guys, they're just rabid animals

kill em all and let god sort em out

>>5718021
On the one hand, it’s been pretty well drilled into you over the years that you’re supposed to treat defeated enemies in a certain way - particularly fellow shinobi. If you came into direct conflict with a team from Iwagakure, for example, there’d be a certain set of expectations to keep in mind as you faced off. You’d avoid killing them if you could, with the understanding that they’d do the same as you. If necessary you’d use lethal force, but if you clearly defeated them without killing them there’s an understanding that they’d get to go home alive.

On the other hand, these guys clearly aren’t playing by those rules - if they get the chance they will absolutely kill you and feel no remorse for it. But what does that mean for your own decision? As the villagers start to close in you consider the question. If someone breaks the largely unspoken rules, how far does that justify you to go?

>Just let things work themselves out. If the locals are coming out it suggests that you’re done here.
>Call out the villagers as cowards. They wouldn’t be doing this if you hadn’t already beaten the Funato.
>If any of the Funato actually ASK for your protection you’ll give it. Otherwise, the usual rules don’t apply.
>Other?

>>5718271
>If any of the Funato actually ASK for your protection you’ll give it. Otherwise, the usual rules don’t apply.

>>5718271
>>Just let things work themselves out. If the locals are coming out it suggests that you’re done here.

There's a reason pirates used to be called hostis humani generis. Enemies of mankind.

>>5718271
>>Call out the villagers as cowards. They wouldn’t be doing this if you hadn’t already beaten the Funato.

>>5718271
>>Just let things work themselves out. If the locals are coming out it suggests that you’re done here.

>>5718271
>>Just let things work themselves out. If the locals are coming out it suggests that you’re done here.
Can’t really blame the locals for not doing something that would’ve just quickly resulted in their own deaths

>>5718271
You glance at Sumire. “I dunno, whatdya think?”

“Hard to say,” she responds carefully. “If we step in we’ll have a fight on our hands.”

“And if these guys went so all out against us,” you continue the line of thinking, “they’ll definitely go after the civilians.”

“Not to mention that we have not even extracted one of the two teams we came here to assist,” Sumire concludes. “I don’t see that we have a choice.”

“You don’t always,” Buntan-san observes. “Sometimes people are just gonna do what they feel like, consequences be damned, and you can’t force ‘em to live their lives how you want.”

Then she glances at the crowd, raising her voice slightly. “But I’ll say one thing - think good and hard about what you do next. I kill so my enemy can’t, so a week from now what I do today won’t bother me one bit. Can all of you say the same?”

…

“Good point,” Sumire muses after you’ve left the seaside village. “I wish I had time to wonder about what they’ll decide, but I suppose we’ll learn when it comes time to leave.”

“I give it even odds,” Buntan-san shrugs. “Hey catgirl, you got anything for us yet?”

You’ve been using your chakra to enhance your senses of smell and hearing, looking for any signs of Team 5. So to answer Buntan-san’s question you sniff again at the air, just to make sure. “Yes,” you reply, almost surprised. “Humans came through here recently, along with… something mechanical.”

“Team 5 was here to test a new design of mechanical mining puppet,” Sumire recounts. “Could that be what you’ve smelled?”

You nod. “That’s what sensei was saying, so yeah. I think we might be on the right track.”
>1d6
>best three of four

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>5719171

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>5719171

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>5719171

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>5719171

>>5719171
`As you draw closer to where you assume is the source of the scents, you hear a familiar sound - the sound of a puppet launching an attack. You unseal a fūma shuriken straight into your hand and hurl it at the incoming sound, catching the puppet just as it bursts from the underbrush as part of some manner of attack. You couldn’t even hazard a guess as to what it was about to do because your thrown blade lodges in its head before it can complete it, and as it staggers back to its feet with the shuriken still stuck there Buntan-san hits it with a crack of lightning from her swords that leaves it sizzling and blackened.

Sumire approaches cautiously, examining the device, turning it over and opening a panel on its back.

“This was definitely built in Konohagakure,” she declares after a moment, before unrolling a scroll and quickly scrawling a fūinjutsu marking onto it. Then she places the puppet onto the scroll and seals it away. “We cannot leave it here.”

“Good point,” you agree. “But we must be close - everyone spread out, and try not to kill anything that’s actually alive?”

“Hey, I’ve got orders,” Buntan-san shrugs. “And those orders are “none of the Leaf shinobi die”, so that’s what’s not gonna happen.”

…

You find Team 5 in a cave near the gold mines, with several of the mining puppets standing guard - Denki has to quickly press a series of commands into a handset to shut them down when he realizes that allies have arrived to help their team.

“You guys made it past the Funato?” Iwabē-kun asks with a frown. “How’d that work?”

“Oh, we beat them,” you shrug. “All of them.”

“All of them?” Metal Lee repeats. “How is it that you defeated so many strong opponents?”

“Same way Hanzō of the Salamander did,” Buntan-san points out. “Clouds of poison are a pretty good way of clearing out anyone who hasn’t got some kinda counter. It’s why that stuff used to get used so often.”

“That makes sense,” Denki-kun nods thoughtfully. “I knew you were working on techniques involving poison, Sumire-kun, but I had no idea you developed them so far.”

>Come on, let’s go save Team 3 now.
>I think you should get to the boat and escape.
>Buntan-san… your ‘expert opinion’ please?
>Other?

>>5719607
>>Come on, let’s go save Team 3 now.

I don't want to treat them like civilian children. They trained for this kind of thing too. Let them get this valuable experience.

>>5719607
>>Come on, let’s go save Team 3 now.

>>5719607
>>Come on, let’s go save Team 3 now.

>>5719607
>Come on, let’s go save Team 3 now.

>>5719607
>1d6 first three

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5719981

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>5719981

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>5719981

>>5719981
“Come on,” you gesture to Denki-kun. “Let’s go rescue Team 3.”

“Wait, what?” he demands. “Boruto-kun and the others are here?”

“They’re in the Land of Water, yes,” Sumire answers. “On a mission of their own.”

“Speaking of which,” you glance at Buntan-san. “I assume you know where we should start looking for Team 3?”

“I do,” she replies. “They would’ve gone with Kagura on his mission.”

“What, why?” you demand.

“This was before we knew you were coming,” Buntan-san shrugs. “They wanted to help out after the terrorist attack, so the Mizukage sent them with Kagura to investigate a Funato sighting.”

“I have the coordinates.”

…

It’s late in the evening by the time the boat you hired gets you to the area where Kagura-san and Team 3 would have been sent. You were dozing a little before being awoken by Buntan-san who kicks your foot.

“Hey, we’ve got some wreckage - well, a lotta wreckage actually,” she corrects herself.

Sure enough… it’s a big wreck of some kind, sunk on a shallow shoal so that bits of worked metal embedded in the seafloor are protruding from the water.

“Did they try to run aground?” Sumire wonders aloud.

“Looks like it,” Buntan-san confirms. “There was a battle.”

“Look at the damage to the plating around the breaks,” Denki-kun points out. “It looks like it exploded from the inside.”

More importantly… you spot what looks like a survivor adrift in an open-topped boat.

“Pull closer to that boat,” you order the captain.
>1/2

>>5720133
Upon closer inspection you can confirm that she’s a survivor - and you can also confirm that she’s a badly wounded Funato soldier, with messy orange hair and tanned skin a bit similar to Shiki and his sister.

Buntan-san looks down at her in the boat. “That… may be one of the main family?”

“Main family?” you repeat.

She nods. “The leader of the Funato has a daughter. She’s got the looks for it… it’s hard to tell, in the photo I’ve seen she’s younger, and not half-dead from a sword wound and exposure.”

>Bring her aboard and restrain her. She must know what happened here.
>She could be useful leverage against her clan. Let’s keep her alive.
>... what happens if we just leave her here?
>Other?

>>5720138
>>She could be useful leverage against her clan. Let’s keep her alive.

>>5720138
>>She could be useful leverage against her clan. Let’s keep her alive.

>>5720138
>>She could be useful leverage against her clan. Let’s keep her alive.

>>5720138
>She could be useful leverage against her clan. Let’s keep her alive.

>>5720138
>She could be useful leverage against her clan. Let’s keep her alive.

Think Sumire could put a seal on her to stop her from using any chakra?
Last thing we need is her blowing herself up or something.

>>5720138
>1d6, taking the first three

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5720963

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>5720963

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5720963

>>5720963
“Look at it this way,” you cross your arms. “Maybe we can’t use her as leverage, or negotiate with her or anything, but if she’s dead those options are off the table.”

It looks almost like Buntan-san is about to disagree… but then she seems to think better of it. “Okay”

Then she gestures to one of the two crewmen. “Alright, bring her in.”

The young woman stirs and groans as you and Buntan-san haul her out of the boat she was drifting in, and hold her in place while Sumire uses a rope-based binding technique to secure her arms. She keeps them tied across the woman’s solar plexus, going in opposite directions so that she can’t form any hand seals.

“This woman is dangerous,” she explains. “I am taking no risks.”

Once she’s been thoroughly retrained, you can begin her health examination as the boat races towards where Buntan-san thinks you should head next to look for Team 3 and Kagura-san. The wounds you find look like they should be fatal, with a slash right across her chest that’s led to a lot of blood loss. But the slash isn’t that deep, and aside from that blood loss her injuries are limited to several broken ribs and a damaged sternum which has interfered with her breathing.

Mending her sternum and ribs eases her breathing significantly, and seems to let her sleep. That leaves the anemia, sun burns, and probably dehydration judging by her cracked lips. By sundown she’s stirring somewhat, taking a little water almost on instinct. Eventually, she opens her eyes - and there’s a dramatic shift in her attitude.

“Who… the hell… are you?” she demands weakly.

“Shinobi,” you answer vaguely. “At the moment, that’s it.”

“We’re neither your enemies nor your allies,” Sumrie adds. “At least not in any official sense.”

“You should have… finished me off,” she insists. “I refuse to be… used… and my father… won’t give you anything…”

“That’s fine,” you shrug. “We really don’t lose anything for trying.”
>1/2

>>5722562
“... no,” your captive replies after a moment. “Guess you don’t.”

“What’s your name, anyway?”

There’s a pause. You’re not entirely sure you’re going to get a response.

“Seiren.”

It comes as a complete surprise.

“Sumire,” your teammate inclines her head slightly.

You follow her example. “Wasabi.”

There’s another pause, this time on Buntan-san’s part. “Buntan.”

“You carry one of the seven swords,” Seiren observes.

“I do,” Buntan-san confirms. “Stay on my good side and you won’t see ‘em.”

“I had a fine weapon myself,” Seiren continues, staring straight up into the night sky. “A bow. Did you find it?”

You shake your head. “It wasn’t on the boat with you.”

“I see,” Seiren sighs. “Not like I’d expect you’d give it back to me.”

“No,” Sumire agrees.

“You’re not from the Land of Water.”

>No comment.
>No, we’re not. But that hasn’t stopped your pals from attacking us.
>We’re from Konoha. We’re here to get another of our teams evacuated.
>Other?

>>5723316
>>No, we’re not. But that hasn’t stopped your pals from attacking us.

>>5723316
>>We’re from Konoha. We’re here to get another of our teams evacuated.

>>5723316
>>No, we’re not. But that hasn’t stopped your pals from attacking us.

>>5723316
>No, we’re not. But that hasn’t stopped your pals from attacking us.

>>5723316
“No, we’re not,” you confirm. “Hasn’t stopped your little pirate pals from coming after us.”

“It wouldn’t,” she retorts. “That’s why they’re ‘pirates’ and not ‘soldiers’ or some shit.”

Well, that’s actually a pretty good point.

“What was all that anyway?” Sumire asks pointedly. “The wreckage we found, I mean? I assume it was some sort of Funato vessel, but that would make it of uncommon size.”

“Why should I tell you anything?” Seiren scoffs.

“Why wouldn’t you?” Sumire counters. “It’s already been destroyed.”

“And if you don’t wanna talk to us we can just sit here staring at you for a few hours,” you add. “That sound fun? Just a little awkward eye contact? That sit well with you?”

“Okay fine,” Seiren sighs, “you win. The thing you saw was a floating fortress with a long-range chakra cannon.”

“Like the one Kumogakure had that they disassembled a decade ago?” Sumire asks.

Seiren quickly clarifies. “Yes and no. Same idea but newer technology, smaller and not as powerful.”

“Who built it?” you ask.

Seiren glances at you. “Not gonna say.”

“Gotcha.”

>Tell us about your clan. Whatever you feel you can say is more than we know now.
>So if you were in our position, what would you do about suddenly having a captive?
>Well, we’re gonna have you tied up here. If you’re planning on trying to escape, don’t.
>Other?

>>5724159
>>Tell us about your clan. Whatever you feel you can say is more than we know now.

>>5724159
>Tell us about your clan. Whatever you feel you can say is more than we know now.

>>5724159
>>Tell us about your clan. Whatever you feel you can say is more than we know now.

>>5724159
“Tell us about your clan, then,” you press. “Even if you don’t tell us anything ‘useful’, I don’t like fighting an enemy I know nothing about.”

“That’s not an unfair point,” Sumire agrees.

Buntan-san replies with a derisive snort. “You’re wasting your time. None of these Funato have anything to say that’s worth hearing.”
>1d6, high roll
>taking the first three

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5725076

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5725076

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5725076

>>5725076
“Well if that’s how you feel,” Seiren smirks, before shutting her eyes and laying her head back. “Guess I’ve got nothing to say.”

You and Sumire both glare at Buntan-san in unison, as though you’ve been practicing. She fidgets awkwardly. “Well… in my defense most Funato’d go nuts and shoot their mouths off after that kinda comment.”

“I suppose that does tell us something,” Sumire sighs softly. “Not all Funato are morons.”

“Just most of ‘em we’ve met,” you grumble.

“Well, most of the Funato aren’t, you know,” Buntan-san explains. “Actual Funato. Think like a yakuza gang that’s named after a family – Funato Seiren was born into it, but everyone else has their own reasons for joining up.”

“And many of them are angry, I would imagine,” Sumire guesses.

“And anger makes people do stupid shit sometimes,” Buntan-san summarizes.

…

The next island is where Buntan-san figured Team 3 might have gone with Kagura-san after a pitched battle.

“And now we have a logistical issue,” Sumire sighs.

Your forehead meets your palm after realizing it yourself. “Seiren.”

“Right.”

>Can’t we just… you know. Leave her here?
>We could try to find some Funato to parlay with?
>Nothing for it but to take her with us and find the others.
>Other?

>>5726077
>>Can’t we just… you know. Leave her here?

>>5726077
>Can’t we just… you know. Leave her here?
Shibari time! Maybe even throw some fuinjutsu in there for good measure.

>>5726077
>>Can’t we just… you know. Leave her here?

>>5726077
>1d6, taking the first three

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>5726700

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>5726700

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>5726700

>>5726700
“… I guess we’ve gotta leave her here?” you offer your initial thoughts. “It’d be a problem to take her with us, right?”

“It would,” Sumire agrees. “Buntan-san?”

“If we’re not gonna just, you know,” she replies, drawing her finger across her throat, “then yeah, we should leave her here.”

“No, we’re not gonna,” you sigh, drawing your finger across your throat.

“The Funato wouldn’t be so gracious,” Seiren grumbles.

“Consider yourself fortunate that we decided to be better than that,” Sumire counters, drawing out an extra piece of rope. “Wasabi, would you mind preparing a few sealing tags to further restrict her movement?”

“Not at all,” you smile.

You affix several fake explosive tags to Seiren in a configuration that makes it look as though breaking her bonds will set them off, as well as a couple of functional fūinjutsu tags that should hinder her from breaking the bonds herself.

…

Once Funato Seiren is thoroughly hobbled you leave the boat with instructions to keep a low profile, avoiding any contact for the next twenty-four hours at which point you’ve scheduled a check-in. Then you go ashore, seeking out a high ground from which you can survey a wider area of the island. From that high ground you can see a settlement, as well as a fairly long canyon crossed by two bridges at separate points – a particularly bad approach for any potential attackers.

“It’s interesting,” Sumire muses. “Like a classic defense – too classic for anyone with half a brain to commit to facing.”

You rub your chin, considering the problem in front of you.

>Suggest investigating the town. That may be where Team 3 has taken refuge.
>Search the area for Funato forces, using your enhanced senses and tracking skills.
>Position yourselves to observe at a closer range, and potentially launch an ambush.
>Other?

>>5727710
>Search the area for Funato forces, using your enhanced senses and tracking skills
>We are literally a ninja, let's just jump down into the canyon and wall-walk back up the other side

>>5727710
>>Search the area for Funato forces, using your enhanced senses and tracking skills.

>>5727710
>>Search the area for Funato forces, using your enhanced senses and tracking skills.

>>5727710
>1d6 best three of four

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>5728263

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5728263

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>5728263

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>5728263

>>5728263
Between your keen eyesight, your enhanced hearing, and absolutely superhuman sense of smell, it isn’t hard to tell where the Funato are gathered. There’s a certain scent in particular that sends a clear signal, the scent of petrol from outboard engines mixed with stale sweat and blood. That makes it laughably easy to approach them from downwind. By slipping in closer to their encampment, careful to avoid their sentries, you can get close enough to start counting them – and it’s an uncomfortably large force numbering just over one hundred.

There’s no complaining and hardly any conversation surrounding your decision to fall back while the ‘luck’ created by your team’s overall level of skill holds. Once you’re confident that you’re out of earshot of any roving Funato sentries, you can have the conversation about what to do next.

“I’m feelin’ like we should attack,” Buntan-san admits, crossing her arms. “Hit ‘em hard while they’re on their asses – it’s obvious they’re gonna attack that village near here.”

“Why?” Sumire asks curiously. “I mean, why would they choose to attack here? It seems to hold little strategic value.”

“That’s just what the Funato are like,” Buntan-san contends, before walking her statement back slightly. “I mean, normally. I guess some of the ‘blood’ Funato weren’t always like this.”

“It may be enough just to hold this road,” Denki-kun suggests. “With those bridges, it seems like there’s been a real investment into ensuring ease of movement.”

“And you wouldn’t make that kind of investment if it wasn’t worth it,” Iwabee completes the thought.

“Right,” Denki concludes. “It may be best to help the village defend itself.”

“The alternative is to help by staging an ambush,” Sumire offers, splitting the difference. “Even if we, as individuals, are a serious step up from the average Funato thug…”

“Which we are,” you add.

“… they outnumber us at least fifteen to one, maybe as much as twenty to one.”

“That’s less than ideal,” Buntan-san admits. “Which is why I wanted to get ‘em before they were ready, if we could.”

“True,” Sumire agrees. “However in their encampment their forces are more concentrated. While traveling, particularly across those bridges, their forces will have to spread out.”

“They’ll be wary,” you summarize, “but they’ll still be vulnerable. Leaves less chance they’ll get their act together and counterattack.”

>I say we set the ambush. Try our best to create an advantageous situation.
>Buntan-san’s strategy will work well so long as we don’t push our luck.
>Against numbers though, I do like the thought of using prepared positions.
>Other?

>>5728827
How many explosive tags do we have?
If we wait for them to go to sleep, maybe wasabi can sneak around and plant them all over the buildings.

Then we set them all off in one go, blow the whole place to hell and clean up any survivors using sumire's poison mist.

>>5728831
About a dozen for Sumire, two dozen for Wasabi with half sealed away. Carrying too many is a risk when we've been shown that they can go off prematurely (like in Shikadai's chunin exams fight in canon).

>>5728827
>>Against numbers though, I do like the thought of using prepared positions.

>>5728827
>>Against numbers though, I do like the thought of using prepared positions.

>>5728827
>Buntan-san’s strategy will work well so long as we don’t push our luck.

>>5728827
>1d6 best three of four

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>5729472

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>5729472

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>5729472

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5729472

>>5729472
Against overwhelming numbers, you’re actually in a rare position where you’d prefer to have the advantage of a prepared position rather than relying purely on mobility. By drawing your enemy into your side’s defenses you can exact a disproportionately heavy toll on the advancing enemy, which means that by the time the mass of Funato soldiers gets close enough to you their numeric advantage will have hopefully disappeared.

“Though after what we’ve seen I’ll take a prepared position, thanks,” you eventually admit aloud. “Let’s see if we can’t get those numbers down to like ten to one.”

Buntan-san frowns. “It’s not my preference, but either way we’re better off sticking together.”

…

Things [i]almost[/i] go horribly wrong right from the start, when Denki-kun accidentally trips a well-hidden tripwire trap that fires a cluster of kunai at him.

“Ninpō!” you touch your left wrist with the fingers of your right hand. “Fuzen no Hyōi!”

You channel your ‘possession’ chakra cloak technique manifest for just a moment through your left arm, forming a giant cat’s paw that shelters Denki-kun from the bomb-tagged kunai. The second you’re able to you end the technique to save strain on your chakra reserves.

“Nice work,” Sumire muses, having barely reacted to the threat. “Let’s all be more careful from here on, okay?”

“Y-yeah,” Denki-kun agrees. “Sorry, but that was a triple wire trap… I’ve only ever seen one person do it that well.”

“Sarada-kun,” you confirm, having plucked up the wire and given it a sniff. “Team 3’s set up in that village for sure.”

…

At the village itself, which has been reinforced with large tree-trunk spikes, you find Team 3 – along with some faces you didn’t expect. The tension is so great you could cut it with a knife.

“Sarada-kun,” you greet the de facto leader of Team 3. “Your traps are as good as always.”

“Are we ever glad to see you guys!” Sarada-kun replies, sounding exhausted. “Things haven’t been going well.”

“No,” Buntan-san agrees in a grumble as she stares angrily at two red-clad swordsmen. “I can see that.”

“What are they doing here?” Iwabee-kun asks pointedly. “I thought they were in jail?”

“They were,” Buntan-san confirms. “Kagura-kun was supposed to be keeping an eye on ‘em while they worked off some of their sentence… where the hell is he, anyway?”

You can tell that something’s wrong without anyone saying anything. Even Buntan-san, a sort of social wrecking ball herself, realizes it. And so she repeats her question.

“… where is Kagura?”
>1/2

>>5730162
You find Butan-san later that evening sitting in seiza in front of the tree whose limbs Kagura-san was buried under, the Kiba laid at her side.

“Kagura and I didn’t always get along,” she admits, eyes still forward. “I always thought he was too wishy-washy about stuff that should have pretty straightforward answers. He always thought I was too aggressive. But he didn’t deserve to die.”

“Most people who die don’t,” you observe quietly. “Are you…”

“Okay?” she completes your thought. “Close enough to it for our purposes. But I dunno what to do about Hebiichigo.”

Hebiichigo… the wielder of Nuibari, a needle-like sword renowned for its ability to pierce and stitch using various techniques involving steel cutting wires. She was one of the ones who caused trouble for Kirigakure several years ago, back when you were all in the academy, and Buntan-san’s duplicity was a critical factor in bringing that incident to a conclusion.

“So what’re you thinking?” you ask her, waiting patiently.

She considers it for a moment. “Hell, I even trust Kyohō more than Hebiichigo - at least when you don’t set him off Kyohō’s mostly harmless. But knowing her, Hebiichigo was probably planning to kill Kagura herself.”

“Okay, so what would Kagura-san’s thoughts be?”

“... he believed in people,” Buntan-san sighs. “I don’t really do that.”

“No?”

She shakes her head. “Trust’s one thing - that you can earn and lose.”

>And she hasn’t earned your trust yet. But does she deserve a chance to, do you think?
>Why not try it Kagura-san’s way this time? If it doesn’t work, take care of her yourself.
>If she’s going to be a problem, what can we do about it under these circumstances?
>Other?

>>5730835
>>And she hasn’t earned your trust yet. But does she deserve a chance to, do you think?

>>5730835
>>Why not try it Kagura-san’s way this time? If it doesn’t work, take care of her yourself.

>>5730835
>>And she hasn’t earned your trust yet. But does she deserve a chance to, do you think?

>>5730835
“And she hasn’t earned yours yet,” you sigh. “But do you think she deserves a chance to?”

“... maybe,” she grumbles. “Kagura’d say so… so I figure he gets one more.”

“That means…”

“I’ll try it his way,” she clarifies. “Once. She crosses the line though and that’s it.”

…

“Shizuma was using you both the whole time,” Buntan-san declares when she returns to tell the two remaining Swordsmen of her decision. “I don’t like this whole situation… but you get one more chance, okay? Prove to me that you’ve learned something and I’ll step up for you like Kagura was gonna.”

“And if we disagree?” Hebiichigo demands like a petulant child, who’s been offered something she wants but with a catch she doesn’t like.

“I end you right here,” Buntan-san declares.

“Tough talk already?” Hebiichigo sneers. “Where do you get off being so confident?”

“I already know Kyohō’s not gonna want to fight me,” Buntan-san shrugs, “and I think we both know I was always stronger than you, Hebiichigo. So if you wanna go home after this, fall in line, yeah?”
>1d6, best three of four

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>5731737

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>5731737

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5731737

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>5731737

>>5731737
For one tense moment, you’re not sure which direction things will go - each woman has their hand on the hilt of their respective sword, waiting for the other to either back down or to escalate the situation.

Eventually, it’s Hebiichigo who removes her hand from Nuibari’s hilt-end with a little ‘tch’ of displeasure. “Fine. But you better not be bullshitting us.”

“And here I thought I had the trust issues here,” Buntan-san scoffs. “Listen up, cause I’m only gonna say it once - I get where you’re coming from…”

“Yeah, right…”

“I do,” Buntan-san insists curtly. “Better than you could possibly know. If I’d made some different decisions I might even be in the same position you’re in.”

“But I’m not. And it’s on me to decide what to do about it.”

…

The night is spent restlessly, which is probably what the Funato were really anticipating - you all realize without needing anyone to tell you that you need to keep up your alert to guard against infiltrators, or even a full night attack. But in maintaining that vigilance, you can’t conserve energy and rest as effectively overnight, leaving you just that much more vulnerable come daybreak. That was always what was going to be their best strategy.

By morning, all your defenses are in place and your fellow defenders are awake in the pre-dawn dim. That’s when you put the counter-strategy into motion…

>Go out to intercept the Funato, who you know must be coming towards you.
>Blow up the bridges using remote bombs that Denki-kun managed to set up.
>Start working as a team to spread poison mist in the Funato’s way.
>Other?

>>5732306
>wait until the funato are on the bridge to blow it up, then start spreading poison

>>5732306
>>Start working as a team to spread poison mist in the Funato’s way.

>>5732306
>>Start working as a team to spread poison mist in the Funato’s way.

I don't want to blow up the bridge if we don't have to. Seems better as a last resort kinda deal. Destruction of public works belongs in a more violent era.

>>5732306
>1d6, high roll
>taking the first three

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>5733146

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>5733146

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>5733146

>>5733146
The plan involves all the poison Sumire had available, and all she could make in a short time. The first trick is to set a fire to a mass of poison ivy right in the way of the advancing Funato troops, which you know as well as Sumire lets the compound typically concentrated in the resin waft over your enemies in the smoke. Symptoms include coughing fits, stinging eyes, facial rashes and swelling - unless anyone has a severe reaction to it none of this should be fatal, but it still means that the Funato have to re-plan how to reach the defended town and that many will be less than effective in combat when they get there.

The next obstacle comes when the Funato find themselves clambering down into the canyon crossed by the pair of bridges to avoid the poisoned smoke - only to find poisoned caltrops and smoke bombs rigged to tripwires. The weather makes that traverse even more miserable, as the Funamushi have to struggle for footing just as the dreary grey gloom finally gives way to actual rain.

“They don’t seem happy,” Sarada muses as she watches from a distance. “Poor dears.”

“Fuck ‘em,” Buntan-san grumbles. “Let’s get the last line ready.”

…

The ‘last line’ is a line of exploding tags, set off by remote courtesy of Denki-kun’s aptitude for technological tricks like that. The palls of dust mark the deaths of a good number of Funato foot soldiers, but doesn’t stop them from continuing to press onward.

“Here they come,” Sumire declares aloud.

The soldiers start to appear before the actual defenses of the village itself, low walls made from stacked rock and lines of sharpened tree trunks embedded into the ground. A few of the townsfolk have bows, and all of them have basic spears - for untrained and inexperienced men the reach will be a significant factor in keeping them alive long enough for a trained shinobi to come to their rescue should the defense of the village turn into a mad brawl.

“Which one?” Buntan demands in a low tone. “Which one killed Kagura?”

“The big guy,” Boruto replies through gritted teeth. The man Boruto’s talking about is unmistakable - he certainly is big, with a grey hooded cloak, small dark goggles covering his eyes, and a bandoleer. Beneath his cloak you can tell he’s practically a walking mountain, his bare chest marked by scars and tattoos.
>1/2

>>5733897
If the changing numbers bother Funato Funamushi, he doesn’t show that in the slightest as he sends in the first wave of foot soldiers. Armed with spears, their main goal seems to be to use their advantages of reach and numbers to either whittle you down or wear you out so that their heavier-hitting allies can come in behind them and clean you up. That might work well if everyone in your group were vulnerable in close quarters combat like Denki-kun, but as things stand it’s little better than suicide.

Even Denki-kun manages to hold his ground with nothing but a pair of kunai, working together with the rest of his team to keep themselves from being totally surrounded or overwhelmed despite the fact that the Funato managed pretty quickly to cut them off from the rest of your side.

Kyohō and Hebiichigo work well together, the former crushing anyone who gets too close to the latter and the latter working to limit their enemies’ movements with her wire-work. The interesting thing to note is Team 3, who mainly specialize in ninjutsu - Sarada relies on balls of lightning, a technique she copied from Buntan-san, while you note that their new team member Mitsuki extends his arms to enhance his taijutsu while using wind release and a serpentine lightning-release technique wherever he sees a good opportunity to do so. Boruto-kun really seems to be focusing on shadow clones and taijutsu, evidently reserving as much chakra as he can for some goal he has in mind but can’t pursue at the moment.

Your own impromptu team with Buntan-san and Sumire seems to be working just as well, though part of that is probably because each of you is such a ferocious fighter to begin with. The Kiba allows Buntan-san to fight both in close range and medium range at the same time, slicing through her attackers’ spears here and through their backs with a floating, lightning-enhanced sword there. She makes it look so effortless.

Sumire seems to have chosen to use Sen’ei Yōkai in combination with senbon and her tantō, with shadowy tendrils lashing at victims whenever she binds their spears at close range or hits their joints with her senbon. Like Boruto she probably has something in mind, but in her case you know what she’s probably thinking - feed as much of the Funato’s own chakra to Nue as possible to summon him larger from the start instead of in his usual panther-sized form.

As for you, spears are a joke when you can use your cat-covering technique. It’s not difficult at all to catch or block the spears with your hands, snap them, then close in on the Funato soldiers wielding them. For some reason the fifth soldier you do this to seems as shocked by it as the first, like he somehow thought that this time was going to be different and he was going to be the one to pull it off. It doesn’t go the way he clearly thought it would, and instead he finds half of his own spear impaled through his right foot pinning him in place.
>2/3

>>5734278
Funamushi watches the body count rise steadily without bothering to disguise his contempt. Eventually, he speaks up in a booming voice.

“What disappointing soldiers!” he laments. “Is this as strong as your desire for revenge is? You dishonor our fallen leader’s memory!”

“Our fallen leader…” Sumire repeats, before coming to a realization and calling back. “You mean Funato Seiren, right?”

“Don’t play dumb with us!” Funamushi roars back. “Your friends over there killed her when they blew up the mobile fortress! We’ll have our revenge on all of you!”

“Wait, hold up!” you shout. “This is all revenge for Seiren? She’s not dead, you dumbass!”

“If you’re telling the truth that means you’ve captured her!” Funamushi counters. “In that case we’ll take her back ourselves before we let you ransom her off, you damned cowards!”

“I hadn’t even said that yet!” you protest. “Quit jumping to damn conclusions!”

That having been said… it’s clear that in this case Buntan-san was right on the money - the Funato consider your ‘capture’ of Seiren to be an insult to whatever weird sense of honor they’ve got, so there won’t be any negotiations. The fact that you not only spared her life but saved it actually means nothing, because they’re going to try to kill you all either way.

“Guys like this are the worst!” you protest as a new wave of soldiers start to charge you - these ones carrying a mix of weapons including swords and spears, but many seemingly ready to unleash ninjutsu of their own.

>Go in hard. Funamushi may be a stubborn jackass but the weaklings may chicken out.
>Hold the line. Make sure you and your teammates are ready when the heavy-hitters move.
>You have some wide-area earth release techniques. Use them to thin the crowd out.
>Other?

>>5734576
>>Go in hard. Funamushi may be a stubborn jackass but the weaklings may chicken out.

>>5734576
>>Go in hard. Funamushi may be a stubborn jackass but the weaklings may chicken out.

There's no fucking negotiating with this level of malicious stupid.

>>5734576
>>You have some wide-area earth release techniques. Use them to thin the crowd out.

>>5734576
>1d6, best three of four
>DC: 12

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>5735174

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>5735174

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>5735174

Rolled 1 (1d6)

>>5735174

>>5735174
… this is stupid. If it weren’t for Funamushi terrifying them into it the rest of these losers wouldn’t dare press the attack like this - you can smell the fear on each and every one of them. And it’s no wonder.

Funamushi doesn’t just use the rain to his advantage - he grabs two of his weaker underlings and literally pulls the blood from their writhing bodies to fuel the technique he’s about to use.

“Give me more or I take it!” Funamushi roars his order to the soldiers, many of whom leap to comply until he has a swirling vortex of blood and water at the ready. “Suiton: Dogō Tatsumaki!”

The Funato leader envelops himself in a powerful waterspout, the water laden heavily with chakra - it’s a technique that’s way beyond most shinobi, even at the jōnin level. Especially with his flunkies and the weather strengthening it… you can see how even Kagura might have been unable to face this down and live to tell about it.

“Hey,” you mutter. “Sumire, Buntan? I feel like goin’ a little wild this time - so back me up, will ya!?”

“You’re thinking about taking that attack head-on!?” Boruto protests.

“Not thinking,” you counter, pulling your hood up. “Ninpō: Kyūsei no Jutsu!”

“I’ll give you an opening!” Sumire declares, weaving several hand seals. “Sen’ei Yōkai Kōsatsu!”

This time the summoned tendrils she called upon Nue to create weave a tight noose, at first slowing the advance of the waterspout before bringing it to a stop - the more chakra they can draw from a technique the stronger the tendrils get, and the tighter the trap. A perfect counter-technique to big flashy attacks like this one.

“I’ll go next!” you shout, rushing forwards with a body flicker. “Do it, Buntan!”

Your claws, sharp as chakra scalpels but tuned-up in power for hand to hand combat, slice into the waterspout with ease, and you knock Funamushi right out the other side. Blood, his blood, trails through the air where your claws went on to leave deep lacerations in his shoulders.

You kick off in time to let Buntan finish the job, clearing the way for her. She already has her Kiba blades planted in the ground. “Raiton: Sandāgēto!”
>1/2

>>5735757
The blast of lightning just about blinded you, but it seems like it might have done the trick… at least until you get closer. The scent of blood in the air, the smell of burned flesh, all of it - you see just a second too late that he must have used the blood you drew to make a summons at the last possible instant that took much of the damage from the lightning. The water compressed around his fist into a spike is aimed right at your gut.

…

“That was close,” he admits, towering over your head to glare at your friends behind you after impaling you through the stomach. “But I got to take something else from you, so I consider it a fair…”

He stops short as your claws dig into his right arm. You look up at him with a smirk.

“What’s wrong, big guy?” you ask. “Cat got your tongue!?”

This time, your chakra claws can’t possibly miss. Funamushi’s head hits the ground a full two seconds before his body does, giving you that long to sever his arm at the elbow. You quickly pull it from your body and end your technique, reincorporating the medical-ninjutsu chakra that enveloped your body back into yourself - and at the same time, healing the damage from Funamushi’s attack in an instant. Once it’s done steaming the only sign that it ever happened is the blood, of which there’s a lot, and the hole through both sides of your outfit.

The Funato seem to be at a complete loss - not one of them makes an aggressive move as you rejoin your own side. Even your friends are stunned.

“... how?” Buntan asks awkwardly.

“He summoned something at the last second,” you explain. “Leeches I think. That’s what took most of your attack.”

“That’s not what I meant, but okay.”

>Go ahead and explain. You owe them that much.
>Nah, not now. Time to run the Funato off for good.
>Just sit on this one. A lady’s gotta have at least one secret.
>Other?

>>5735757
>>5735761
>Sen'ei Youkai Kousatsu: Striking Shadow Apparition Strangulation
A binding technique that uses several of Nue's shadow tendrils to wrap the target progressively tighter as they sap chakra from them.
>Kyuusei no Jutsu: Nine-Lives Technique
A chakra cloak using chakra that's already been transformed for a medical technique, amplifying cutting power and speed/reflexes, and also allowing instantaneous healing of wounds by ending the technique early.

>>5735761
>>Go ahead and explain. You owe them that much.

What is even the point of having a badass technique if you don't needlessly explain it's mechanics to prove how cool you are.

>>5735761
>Just sit on this one. A lady’s gotta have at least one secret.
>You shouldn't underestimate the hidden leaf's lesser clans, you know?

>>5735761
>Just sit on this one. A lady’s gotta have at least one secret.

>>5735761
>>Just sit on this one. A lady’s gotta have at least one secret.

>>5735761
>Just sit on this one. A lady’s gotta have at least one secret.

>>5735761
>>Go ahead and explain. You owe them that much.

>>5735761
>>Just sit on this one. A lady’s gotta have at least one secret.

>>5735761
“Hey, a girl has to have some secrets,” you shrug. “But it should go without saying that he underestimated Konoha’s ‘minor’ clans.”

“Commander Funamushi’s down!” one of the Funato shouts. “Get his body and fall back! Fall back!”

Two Funamushi foot soldiers rush forward to grab Funamushi’s body under the shoulders, while a third grabs his head by the hair before all three flee with their spears still aimed at you and your friends.

“... don’t worry about it,” Buntan grumbles, noticing the look you’ve given her. “Chasing them down’s not my mission.”

“That said they know we have Seiren,” Sumire points out, before glancing at Sarada. “Can your team and Denki’s handle things here for a while?”

“Well,” Sarada muses, still clearly surprised that Funamushi is dead. “Now that Funamushi’s out of the picture yeah, we can handle this.”

…

It takes a while before you feel like speaking up, but eventually you test the proverbial waters. “So… what do you think?”

Buntan’s examined what evidence has been left behind for just as long as you have, and has doubtless reached her own conclusions by now. It’s going to be important to try to reconcile what you all may disagree on based on what you’ve seen.

“I’ve seen this before,” she tells you. “This is what it looks like when the Funato launch a surprise boarding. The first was walking on deck when his throat was slit from behind, and he was finished by a spear to the back. The captain was killed in his bed.”

“It happened some time last night,” you add, “based on the smell.”

“So before Funamushi even knew Seiren was here,” Sumire summarizes.

You nod. “Yes. That’s my assumption.”

Buntan is quiet for a few moments. “Seiren didn’t do any of this,” she muses. "It'd be easier if I could just blame her."
>1/2

>>5736450
So… the next question is, what to do?

“So where do we go now?” you ask aloud.

“I don’t know,” Buntan admits. “There’s a few things we could do… but I also have a mission.”

>If you want to go after Seiren, we’ll back you up.
>I think we should report to the Mizukage directly.
>We can get back to the Land of Fire without you,
>Other?

>>5736455
>>We can get back to the Land of Fire without you,

>>5736455
>If you want to go after Seiren, we’ll back you up.

>>5736455
>>If you want to go after Seiren, we’ll back you up.

>>5736455
“If you want to go after Seiren, we’ll back you up,” you declare. “After Kagura died for his village, how’d you think we’d feel if we punked out now?”

“It may not be the smartest plan,” Sumire sighs, “but I find myself agreeing with the sentiment.”

“He was our friend,” Boruto insists flatly, “and he left something unfinished. We can’t just walk away from that!”

After considering those words for a few moments, Buntan nods. “Alright. She has a head start, but I know where she’ll be going - to meet up with the Funato fleet that’s standing off against Kirigakure’s. If we go now we can cut her off.”

…

“So, what do we do if we actually catch her?” Boruto wonders aloud later on in the day, as your new boat races recklessly towards the point where Buntan thinks you can catch Seiren before her boat reaches the Funato fleet.

>She’s in a position to stop the killing. I think we should try talking to her, at least at first.
>We capture her again. It’d feel weird to try and kill her NOW, after saving her once.
>We stop her, one way or another.
>Other?

>>5737383
>>She’s in a position to stop the killing. I think we should try talking to her, at least at first.

>>5737383
>>She’s in a position to stop the killing. I think we should try talking to her, at least at first.

>>5737383
>>She’s in a position to stop the killing. I think we should try talking to her, at least at first.

File: FNt8pgQXoAAupLE.jpg (54 KB, 1440x810)

54 KB JPG

>>5737383
“I wanna talk,” you admit. “I dunno if we’re gonna get anything out of it, but she’s the closest to ‘reasonable’ we’ve seen in her clan. So if anyone on their side’s gonna help stop the killing it’s her.”

Sumire glances over at Buntan-san, who has been quietly listening to your discussion since you put back to sea. “What do you think, Buntan-san?”

“I don’t like it,” she grumbles, “but I also can’t say you’re wrong.”

“So we’ll try it first?”

She nods. “Yeah, I think so.”

…

The weather cooperates with you - letting your boat pull out of a fog bank to cut off the Funato boat that Buntan-san believes is carrying Funato Seiren. It’s not clear what’s going to happen at first, but you stand out on the deck with Sumire and Buntan anyway. And after a few moments, it becomes clear that the Funato boat is slowing to make it easier to match course and speed with them. Out on the deck you see Seiren standing with her arms crossed.

Both boats slow to a stop.

“Why are you here!?” Seiren demands loudly.

Two Funato soldiers join her with crossbows at the ready, but she gestures to them to lower their weapons. After exchanging a confused glance with each other, the two soldiers follow the order.

“The little ladies here wanna talk!” Buntan declares. “We’re pulling closer, stay on your boat and we’ll stay on ours, got it!?”

“Do it!” Seiren replies.
>1/2

>>5738937
“So,” Seiren continues once the boats have pulled closer. “What do you want to say?”

“Have you heard about Funamushi-san?” Sumire asks.

Seiren shakes her head. “If you fought him and now you’re here I’d guess he’s dead.”

“I killed him,” you clarify.

Seiren looks you over. “Really?”

“I’m harder to kill than it looks,” you shrug. “Though he gave it a heck of a go.”

After a moment she nods. “Okay, I’ll take you at your word. How?”

“He assumed you were dead and killed one of our friends in revenge,” Sumire explains, “and he was going to do the same to us. One by one if need be, painfully if possible.”

“We told him you were still alive,” you add. “Didn’t change his mind, just his reasons.”

“Sounds like he didn’t give you a choice.”

You shake your head. “Yeah, but [i]he[/i] did.”

“We found out later that you had escaped,” Sumire tells her. “And we do know you didn’t kill those men.”

“She would’ve if she could’ve,” Buntan-san grumbles.

Seiren shrugs. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Buntan repeats.

“It’s a weird situation. So whatdya want me to do about it?”

“Wasn’t Funamushi a huge asset to your clan?” you press. “How are the Funato going to survive being whittled down like that? Isn’t it just death by a thousand cuts?”

“You can do something about it.”
>1d6, first three

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>5738942

>>5738942
>“Yeah, but [i]he[/i] did.”
>we
Whoops. It's been a long day.

Rolled 5 (1d6)

>>5738942

Rolled 6 (1d6)

>>5738942

>>5738947
>>5738999
>>5739090
Izuno Wasabi, heiress of the Talk-No-Jutsu

>>5739091
To be fair, the point Wasabi has to make is completely undeniable and it's an example that's pretty personal to Seiren.

>>5738949
“So… you want me to make peace with Kirigakure or something?” Seiren frowns, crossing her arms. “Me? Are you some kinda idiot?”

“Yeah,” you admit. “I definitely can be, but this time I’m also right.”

“Why’re you still talking to me?”

“Why’re you still listening to me?”

After a few moments of silence, Seiren bursts into laughter - not a menacing or maniacal laugh, but one of what sounds like genuine amusement. “Well, aren’t we the bold one? I can see how Funamushi’d underestimate you.”

“But is that a ‘yes’ then?” you press.

“I can’t say it’s gonna work the way you’re hoping,” Seiren admits, no longer laughing, “but what the hell, why not try it your way for once. See if I like it.”

One of the two soldiers turns to her, staring in shock. “Seiren-sama, what are you saying?”

“She is the sea,” she changes her voice to sound more dramatic before chuckling. “I know Funamushi made a big deal outta me being ‘the most like the sea’, but you gotta remember - the sea can be fickle, even brutal sometimes. But sometimes it’s calm, and it feeds and nurtures us Funato. And it changes when it’s gotta.”

It’s not just her allies who are stunned by this change, but almost everyone else on your boat as well.

“What?” Sumire asks, glancing at you first. “Is this really happening?”

“Well, she does what she wants,” Buntan shrugs dismissively.

“You’re just fine with that?” Boruto-kun demands.

“Sure,” Buntan admits. “What’ve you seen about the Funato so far that makes you think any of ‘em are the type to go in for lame tricks?”

“I don’t have the patience,” Seiren admits. “And to be totally honest, I get where the little lady’s coming from. If our clan’s gonna get itself wiped out someone’s gotta say something, right? I guess that’s on me.”

>We’ll go together. I’m sure Konohagakure wouldn’t mind mediating some agreement.
>Go your own way, but be careful. We’ll take this news to Kirigakure directly.
>You and two pirates? Don’t you need more people backing you than that?
>Other?

>>5740818
>>We’ll go together. I’m sure Konohagakure wouldn’t mind mediating some agreement.

>>5740818
>>We’ll go together. I’m sure Konohagakure wouldn’t mind mediating some agreement.

>>5740818
>>We’ll go together. I’m sure Konohagakure wouldn’t mind mediating some agreement.
Wasabi is one cool cat, she’s even pirate approved

>>5740818
“We could go together,” you suggest. “I’m sure Konoha’s higher-ups wouldn’t mind us mediating.”

“Mediating?” Seiren repeats with a frown. “Hell no.”

“Hell no?” you repeat.

“Look,” Seiren clarifies, “I don’t think you get it - we’re not gonna negotiate anything. Well, I’m gonna try it your way, but it’s probably gonna come down to a deathmatch.”

“Really?” you ask, taken aback. “Is the rest of your family really that bad?”

“Worse than you probably think.”
>1d6, first three

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5741982

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>5741982

Rolled 3 (1d6)

>>5741982

>>5741982
By the time you reach the assembled fleets the battle has already begun. Not only are suiton users vying for control of the very waves themselves, but they’ve also been firing on each other with powerful torsion launchers like massive crossbows at a distance of about a kilometer. Each shot is about as big around as a small tree trunk with a hardened tip and an X-shaped tail, about as long as a grown man is tall. Each has a cluster of explosive tags fitted in a ring just behind the hardened head, so that a direct hit that penetrates the enemy hull lets the tags explode on the inside of the target.

“That doesn’t look good,” Denki-kun muses, basically stating the obvious at this point. “Are we sure we can do this?”

“I can definitely do it,” Seiren assures him. “Not all of you can though, and this boat sure as hell can’t.”

“So what do we do?” Denki-kun asks.

>’We’ don’t. Someone needs to take a message to the Mizukage about all this.
>Wait here. We’ll take this in phases, starting with our team, then Team 3.
>Denki-kun, we need you to rig both our boats to work as drones.
>Other?

>>5742733
>>Denki-kun, we need you to rig both our boats to work as drones.

>>5742733
>>Denki-kun, we need you to rig both our boats to work as drones.

Well this seems fun.

>>5742733
>>Denki-kun, we need you to rig both our boats to work as drones.

>>5742733
“Denki-kun,” you muse. “How long would it take to rig both our boats up as drones?”

“Not long,” Denki answers. “I have all the components I need sealed in a scroll. But why?”

“I have a plan,” you smirk.

Sumire looks at you with a curious grin. “I suspect I’m going to like this.”
>1d6, high roll
>taking the first three

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5743785

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>5743785

Rolled 4 (1d6)

>>5743785

>>5743785
The plan is fairly simple, but also practically guaranteed to work - a rare combination of qualities, as far as plans go. The two rigged boats split their courses, one heading in a wide arc towards the Funato fleet and the other following a tighter course towards the lead ship. The trick of course is that you get to use them as cover - your team using the boat heading more directly towards the lead ship, and the other two Konoha teams using the other. Denki’s team splits off at the last second, releasing a speedboat from the side and taking it towards the Land of Water fleet, while Sarada, Boruto, and Mitsuki run across the sea surface beside the boat as it makes its turn towards the Funato.

Both boats take a pummeling as they approach, but they’re taking it in your place. Eventually the one you were using as cover passes the lead ship and slams into the side of the ship just past it, which lets you board the flagship. The boat the others were using as cover sinks from the damage it’s sustained, but it gets Sarada’s team as far as they need to so that they can board as well.

“I was right,” Sumire muses. “I liked that one. So, what next?”

“Seiren’s the expert,” Buntan shrugs.

“So, what’s next?” you repeat Sumire’s question, addressing it this time to Seiren.

“OLD MAN!” Seiren roars, “GET DOWN HERE RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!”

In response, Seiren’s father leaps from the ship’s bridge and lands with enough force to buckle the steel deck plates. He’s much brawnier than she is, but you can definitely see the resemblance anyway - and there’s a look of fury in his eyes.

“SEIREN!” he roars back. “HOW DARE YOU BETRAY US!?”

“YOU STARTED A WAR WE CAN’T WIN!” Seiren bellows. “AND NOW YOU’RE GONNA BE THE ONE TO STOP IT!”

Seiren’s father laughs wildly. “THE FUNATO WILL NEVER BACK DOWN! DOES THE SEA STOP ADVANCING WHEN IT CRASHES AGAINST THE SHORE!? NO!”

“YOU’VE ALREADY GOTTEN IRREPLACEABLE PEOPLE KILLED!” Seiren counters.

“SO BE IT!” her father insists. “SOME MAY DIE, BUT THE SEA SHALL REMAIN!”

“YOU DUMBASS!” Seiren roars angrily. “THE SEA MAY BE ETERNAL BUT THE FUNATO WON’T BE IF YOU KEEP THIS SHIT UP!”

“THOSE ARE THE WORDS OF A COWARD!”

“AND THAT’S THE ATTITUDE THAT GOT MOM KILLED!”
>1/2

>>5744560
“You…” the Funato clan head growls, his voice dangerously low at first. “You… DARE…”

“YES,” Seiren interrupts. “I… DARE!”

Then she holds up her right hand. “Soldier! Hand me your sword!”

The soldier dutifully raises his sword in its sheath, positioning the hilt right over Seiren’s right hand so she can draw it in a single sweep. “I knew this was how it was gonna go… I wanted to give you a chance, but I knew you were gonna be like this.”

“I had such high hopes for you, Seiren,” her father replies, raising his fists. “But like your brother, you’re turned out to be such a disappointment.”

“Just because Ikada wanted to build ships instead of fight…”

“Who said anything about that whelp?” her father growls.

There’s a definite pause before Seiren asks the reasonable question. “Where is Isari? Where’s my brother?”

“The same place where all traitors go,” her father answers with a sneer.

Seiren readies her sword. “Don’t interfere. He’s my problem.”

>He doesn’t have an honorable bone in his body. We’re doing this together.
>We’ll stand back for now and let you fight. Any funny business and we’re back in.
>We’ll keep those other soldiers off you at least. Make it a fair fight.
>Other?

>>5745378
>We’ll keep those other soldiers off you at least. Make it a fair fight.

>>5745378
>>We’ll stand back for now and let you fight. Any funny business and we’re back in.

>>5745378
>>We’ll keep those other soldiers off you at least. Make it a fair fight.

In a matter of succession like this, I don’t think we can interfere and still have people accept the outcome.

Rolled 6 (1d6)

Uh oh, stinky!

Rolled 2 (1d6)

Rolled 2 (1d6)

>>5745378
“I don’t trust these other soldiers,” you admit. “Team Konohamaru, think you can help us keep these jerks off them long enough for Seiren-san to do what she needs to?”

“Yeah, let’s do it,” Boruto cracks his knuckles.

Sumire draws her tantō, and Buntan-san draws the Kiba blades. It’s pretty easy to keep the Funato soldiers away from Seiren, since they’re no better than a run of the mill chūnin - and you and Sumire are definitely above that level now. You quickly establish a cordon and maintain it, without killing or even (seriously) maiming any of the Funato so that Seiren can do her thing.

…

You are Funato Seiren, and oh god this was such a mistake.

Your old man isn’t just unreasonably angry, he’s also unreasonably powerful whenever he has water nearby - to the point Kirigakure had to dry him out like a piece of jerky to keep him contained in their prison. He’s also the guy who taught Funamushi how to pull a person’s blood from their body and kill their friends with it, so you’re going to have to keep an eye out for that. Plus he’s ridiculously strong and he has a spear, meaning he has the advantages of strength and reach. And if he’s already killed Isari there’s no way he’s gonna go easy enough on you to take advantage of it.

What the hell are you going to do now?

>Get inside the reach of his spear without getting into the reach of his hands, and stay there.
>Throw weapons at him from outside his reach. He’s too dangerous at close quarters to fight.
>Disguises and hiding are your other strength - fight like a ninja and blend in with the soldiers.
>Other?

>>5746553
>>Get inside the reach of his spear without getting into the reach of his hands, and stay there.
remember the basics of Maai

>>5746553
>Get inside the reach of his spear without getting into the reach of his hands, and stay there.
Seiren ain't no bitch, nor is she a fool

>>5746553
>>Get inside the reach of his spear without getting into the reach of his hands, and stay there.

Riding the knife's edge here.