Chapter 15

Tea Capital
Ryoma, Recently Promoted Ninja

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

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

Ryoma wasn’t that strong, so tough decisions were going to have to be made. If he stayed to investigate the tower under the premise that Laughing Smoke was bluffing, then he wouldn’t be present to defend the clients in the capital. That could potentially lead to a massive loss of life, and more importantly, a significant blow to their reputation as ninja. That would eat into their future paychecks.

If they left immediately, then assuming Laughing Smoke was traveling by moth, he’d have several long minutes to work with before the five of them returned even if they traveled away right now. That would also pull them back from the tower and give anything within more time to prepare for a renewed attack, or potentially vanish. That would potentially let them defend the clients, but it might also be an attack that never comes.

The best course of action was to leave someone behind to clean up this island while pulling back the rest of the force to defend the capital.

And as the slowest one here, the best choice to remain behind was him.

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

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

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

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

“Doesn’t matter- we have to cover everything regardless.” In contrast to the slightly strained voices of the ninja from Iwa and Tani, the Kirinin was completely steady, with the sounds of wires whipping through the air and the occasional splash of footsteps in puddles.

Immediately- every other ninja with him understood the situation and the potential bluff at play. It was good to be working with professionals. “I’ll volunteer to remain behind and cover the situatio-“

“Fuck that- I’ll stay here!” Iwanin interrupted him with a snarl. “I’m pissed off now- I’m wrecking this stupid tower!”

“If you know water-walking, you’ll be faster than me to return.” Ryoma decided to admit a weakness for the sake of expediency. Cloma was scowling as he spoke the next lines. “I don’t.”

The line was quiet for a few moments, the only sounds being thwacks and smashes and other violent noises.

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

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

“Go back on the boat then- I’m sticking here- fucker!” This interrupt and exclamation was interrupted by a deafening boom of rock smashing into earth. This boom was big enough for Cloma to feel through the soles of his sand-feet. “It’ll be a half hour before I’m safe enough to be around civilian populations! I can’t go back yet!” Iwanin, in a show of faint angry comradery, revealed a bit of his own weaknesses in turn.

Entirely possible that he was lying here, but then again it was entirely possible that Ryoma was also lying here. There was nothing to be done for it but to just trust that the other party was being relatively transparent about the situation.

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

“Pft- that settles it then.” Kirinin growled. “Not gonna let my paycheck die because some amateur couldn’t keep it in his pants-“

“-Tani can carry you back. We’ll finish the fights we’re in and head back. Iwa and Ame can clean things up here, if they don’t die.” Kirinin continued straight through the interruption.

Ryoma wasn’t the most thrilled by that idea, but if Iwanin was truly a walking population hazard right now, then it was probably the best move they had. “Fine.” He grumbled, biting back his own embarrassment at the prospect. “All quiet here- support needed anywhere?”

“Y-yeah I could use some- woah!” Taninin decided to refrain from her usual teasing as she spoke over the radio. “South side of the island- I’ll make my way into the clear- fweh!”

“I’ll be there soon.” Cloma responded, taking off the radio and tossing it up, letting Ryoma connect out a string and catch it as he crawled out of the Wood Dragoon. Fastest way to get to the south side of the island from his current position was to get out of his puppet-armor. Speed was always of utmost importance in these sorts of things.

It was annoying to let go of the sand transformation, wasting a few motes of chakra on a defense that ultimately didn’t matter, but sunk cost fallacy was a fallacy for a reason. He sealed it away again, storing it in his belt loop before layering a basic transformation around himself again. Twenty.

Cloma caught the large scroll and ‘secured’ it to his back, hands immediately moving through seals to recast Sand Transformation around himself, adding a layer of dense sand around his form but leaving the appearance unchanged. Eighteen motes.

No need to recast Air Convection, which was still operating around the ‘scroll’ on his back. Instead he raised his hands in the ‘Tiger’ seal and cycled chakra.

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

As expected of ninja from the ‘Village Hidden in the Sand’, they stuck to a theme.

A cycling of chakra, an energized jump, and Cloma was suddenly dozens of feet in the air and hurtling towards the south side of the island. Wind rushing back his armored shell of sand and gravity tugging at his ankles as he practically flew. Sixteen motes.

The sparse cover made it relatively easy to see most of the island from this position. The north side was covered in unnatural, rolling mists. The east side was covered in jutting spurs of rock and shaking pillars.

And the south side wasn’t covered by anything- letting him easily see the Taninin doing many acrobatic moves in the effort to avoid swipes from an elephant-sized ground sloth. The hide was strangely dull green, and a number of droopy white flowers grew from its back like it was some great hedge that had decided to uproot itself and sit down on the local megafauna.

The sloth, of course, being too lazy to get it off, or something like that. There was a joke here, he knew it.

She was further troubled by a pair of corpse-clones, making their own swipes and swings in coordination with the giant ground sloth. Each used a simple katana, and thus far no jutsu from what he could see. Low on chakra maybe.

He frowned as he steadied himself for a landing. He was getting low on chakra himself. Only sixteen motes before he has to dip into his personal pool. He raised his feet and tensed a few muscles.

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

Another jump, this time unpowered, brought him within range. Taninin ducked under a massive swipe, kicking the legs out from one corpse clone before her baton extended to nine times its size against the ground, throwing her up and out of the way of another swing. They were just fast enough to keep her consistently on the run, from the looks of it.

The tripped Corpse-clone moved to rise, eyes widening and throwing himself back to avoid a hail of kunai coming down on his position.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

Cloma’s fingers twitched, making a slight adjustment to the angle of their flight.

Six kunai smashed into the corpse clone, almost center-mass, making a spurt of blood then smoke as it collapsed to the ground. The giant ground sloth continued its single minded pursuit of the Taninin, even as the other clone turned to face him.