Chapter 27

“One of the most important things you learn under a proper Jonin sensei is how to take and operate during a mission. As we can’t exactly skip this, I will be taking everyone who wants to go on a proper and official mission.”

It was something he came up with after finishing the other parts of the Mark Two- the shiki and seals had been commissioned and purchased already, the object-summoning technique on a scroll courtesy of the guys from Intel, and the ninjutsu corps still waiting on their ninja to get back.

He had pretty much nothing else to do in terms of work, so taking a field-trip like this wasn’t going to be taking him away from anything. He had discussed the matter with Toyoko, who had grumpily agreed with his assessment. He had then proposed the idea to the Lord Kazekage, who demanded he justify the idea with a very intimidating blank look on his face.

After Ryoma had laid out all his reasoning, he got a stamp of approval, told he’d be joined by another Jonin, and was given a suitable mission to take the kids on. He was starting to think that the Kazekage just liked glowering at people.

It was also in that meeting that he learned that Mari was close enough to the Lord Kazekage to hold his infant son, a baby with distinct red hair and a secret demon sealed inside of him. She had waved at him with a neat cloth-puppet arm while he was leaving. Good to see that she was experimenting, he supposed.

His announcement was met with excited mutterings and cheers from the gathered mercenary-children. He raised a hand and waved it down, clearly communicating that he still had more to say. After a few moments, the kids quieted down and allowed him to continue. “Now, all of this has already been discussed with the Lord Kazekage, and a suitable mission has been reserved to teach you all the basics. We’ll be meeting at the main gates tomorrow at o-six hundred, so prepare for that.”

“Wait, sensei, who gets to go first?!” The orange haired girl, Himeko or something, asked, throwing her hand up to ask but not waiting for him to call upon her.

He tilted his head. “…Everyone? Everyone who wants to come along that is- this mission is for practice, so the money being split twenty ways doesn’t really matter.”

“Y-you can do that?!” the Frosty-sash girl, Hiyako, called out. “T-take more than… four… uh.” Her confidence evaporated as she continued speaking. It was easier to remember the kids with quirks, everyone else tended to fade into the background of his recognition. Judging from the agitated rumblings of the class, she was speaking a question that everyone was currently thinking.

Ryoma shrugged. “It’s not typical, no, but there’s no actual limit to how large any particular team can be. The standard is a four-man cell, as that has proven most consistent so far, but larger and smaller teams have been assembled before. The reason most don’t organize into larger teams is because splitting the pay more than four ways means you don’t usually make all that much profit by the end.”

He reached up to scratch the side of his neck. “For the sake of this mission, I’ll be organizing everyone into four-man groups with their own team leaders and acting as Field-Commander. The trip there and back shouldn’t take longer than about ten days, so everyone who wants to come should prepare for at least twenty days in case of emergency or delays”

“What’s the mission, sensei?” The pink haired shounen boy asked with a competitive look on his face. His name was Bazo, which was a very funny name and therefore one that was easy to remember.

“I bet it’s wiping out bandits!” Himeko- Himeyo? Hime- Orange girl said excitedly.

“Assassination!” The pink-haired seducer-wannabe guessed, fists shaking up and down as she pumped herself up. Her name, Mao, was easy to remember because she had little cat accessories on at all times.

“Defending a fortress?” The kid with the straight sword and sandy blond hair tried, reaching up to scratch the bridge of his nose. June or John or something like that- a J’n type name.

He let them get the guesses out of their system, reaching into his vest to pull out the appropriate mission-scroll and unraveling it on top of the desk. They continued to ramble for a few moments before realizing that he wasn’t going to talk until after they had stopped, and quieting down in short order.

Ryoma nodded. “Our mission will be grocery shopping.”

The staggered reactions were pretty amusing to watch. He chuckled at their disappointment before reaching forwards to tap the scroll. “We will be traveling to the Land of Rivers with a large sum of money, once we have arrived we will go to a number of long term business partners and buy rice, once we have the rice we will come back to Suna and hand it off to the Logistics Division.”

He looked up. “This is a C-rank mission that will pay one hundred thousand ryo in total, I will be forfeiting my share, so divided about twenty ways means about five thousand ryo per person.” Actually there were more like twenty five kids here now, counting again.

He was being paid a D-Rank mission for every teaching session he held, so it wasn’t like he was losing too much here. As expected though, the kids heard ‘one hundred thousand’ cut down into ‘five thousand’ for each of them and started complaining.

“Five-thousand?!”
“That’s so little!”
“We might as well not even show up!”

He raised a hand, cutting them off again. “Like I said- people don’t normally organize into such large teams for a reason.” He lowered his hand slowly as he continued. “This is a relatively low-risk mission so I can demonstrate the process- the point is to teach you all how to take a mission, not to earn a lot of money. You do not have to participate if you don’t think it’s worth doing.”

They were still grumbling, so he smacked the desk to emphasize his next point. “Just like these remedial lessons- none of you have to be here if you don’t think it’s worth your time. You are free to organize yourselves into teams and take missions on your own if you want.”

He glowered over them for a few moments longer, letting his mild annoyance get across in his gaze. Only after they had been sufficiently scowled at did he let up, leaning back slightly and relaxing his gaze. “Now, everyone who intends to come, stand up. We’ll need to organize sub-teams.”

About half of them stood up immediately, and a few sent their hands up instead. He pointed at blue haired serious girl, Chikako. She was consistently patient in asking questions, so she was easy to remember. “Go ahead.”

She dropped her hand. “What if one is uncertain about if they are going on this mission, sensei?”

“You have until tomorrow morning to decide.” He stated bluntly. “Six am, main gates, twenty days worth of supplies. We can organize you into teams along the way if needed, but the mission isn’t waiting around for you if you have cold feet.”

“I understand sensei.” She replied with a firm nod, standing up and joining the others in the ‘definitely going’ group. That was about two-thirds of the class, about eighteen people in total.

An awkward number, he was honestly hoping for an interval of four to make things easy. Ah well. “Here’s the most fun part of planning a team- theorycrafting.” He called out with an amused tone, the kids blinking at the unfamiliar term. He reached into his vest again, pulling out a storage-scroll and unsealing its contents.

A stack of folders appeared on his desk. “I have your profiles here, listing off all of your strengths and weaknesses as shinobi, redacted down to ‘genin’ level permission by the guys in Intel. This information was collected during your academy training, so don’t be surprised if there’s a lot of ‘poor’ or ‘subpar’ in here- that’s according to professional levels. Most of you are doing more or less fine for Genin.”

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“Profiles?!” Pink-haired Bazo recoiled.

“Everyone in the village has one.” Ryoma waved a hand. “Everyone from the Kazekage to myself to the neighborhood pets- we all have one and it’s a good resource for things like this. It’s this kind of stuff that initial team compositions are formed and that large, multifaceted missions are planned around. All of you are genin, so all of you will have permission to see everything in these files. If it’s redacted, then you don’t have permission to know it yet.”

He picked up a folder, Azuko apparently, and lightly slapped it with the back of his other hand for emphasis. “Today, we’ll be using these to plan out team compositions, strategies, and synergies between yourselves. Two ninja of different abilities working together is usually more effective than two ninja with the same specialty trying to do the same thing.”