Chapter 29

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

They left a sign saying as much and moved along an alternative route off the road, which caused their delayed return. They were further slowed by a storm that rolled down from Rain, but experienced no further troubles. That was certainly nice to hear, because Ryoma was already anticipating the headache of needing to deal with the paperwork of a single death, let alone multiple.

Baki had been deployed immediately afterwards to go check out Team Three’s target location and perform standing post-battlefield cleanup. That meant picking up any bodies, clearing out any evidence of Suna involvement, and picking up any salvageable trinkets and bits that might be in the location.

Ninja were downright scavengers that way, picking up basically everything they could get their hands on if they got to a battlefield first. This was partly why ninja wars were so invisible to the normal population- because the only evidence of a ninja battle is usually the shattered terrain or burns- and there’s any number of other potential reasons for stuff like that. This was especially notable in particularly rural areas, where villages went months or years without contact with other villages.

If a tree falls in the woods, and no one is around to hear it, does anyone know a ninja knocked it over? Would anyone know to blame a ninja specifically over animal clans, natural disasters, or demons?

The Elemental Nations, for as much as they pretended to be peaceful, was a place where sometimes places were wiped off the face of the earth, and no one will ever figure out why. There was a reason most of the population tended to stick near the cities and roads, where the Daimyos, Samurai, and Ashigaru were in abundance to fend off anything that tries anything funny.

“Sensei.”

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

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

“Thank you-” He forgot her name again. “-Genin, go ahead and get some sleep.” He gave a little groan of exertion, tugged forwards suddenly by a tremendous pull. His arms shook slightly as he held on, just long enough for the fish to give some slack and let him make another loop around his arm- across the thumb and the elbow.

It had been a long time since he had gone fishing, he forgot how much he enjoyed it. “I’ll see them in a moment.”

“Yes sir!” She recited, before wandering off back to whatever tent she and her team was using.

Ryoma held the line for a few moments more- then called out to the water. He gave this maybe a fifty percent chance of success. “Hey- catfish! You mind calling it a draw for today? I have something to do.” He stopped his pulling and let the line slacken appropriately.

The line loosened further as the head of a catfish slowly poked its way up out of the river, looking up at him with its wide face and beady eyes.

After a moment, it spoke. “…Draw?” It called out in a deep rumble, a dumb tone in its voice. The hook hung out of its immense lip.

Looks like he got it right then. Ryoma nodded, uncoiling the ninja wire around his arm to give it more slack. “Yeah, shame I know. Here, let me come down and get the hook out of your lip.” He walked off the side of the bridge, falling for a couple seconds as he gathered chakra in his feet.

His soles collided with the rushing water- dipping in and letting him drop for a few moments as he focused- and then bringing him back to the surface. Walking on a flowing river was a bit trickier, seems like. He made sure to stabilize himself before stepping forwards and over to the mostly-still catfish. The catfish flicked its whiskers back and forth as he knelt down beside it.

The hook was a fair bit into its jaws. Ryoma frowned and spoke. “It’s a decent ways in there- I’ll try to get it out without hurting you too badly.”

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

“There ya go.” He wrapped the rest of his line up around his arm, then reached down and patted the fish on the head. “I’ll try to catch and eat you some other time, if I’m ever in the area, alright?”

“S’okay if I lose. If I win, I’ll pull you in and swallow you.” The fish rumbled, nodding against his hand before pulling away and continuing. “See you later, fisherman.”

A few moments later, it was gone into the river, its immense and slimy shape fading into the darkness of the churning waters. Ryoma washed his hand off with a blank expression, standing up and making his way carefully back to the shoreline. Fish were somehow much creepier when they could talk.

The last one, the one they ate, congratulated them on the ‘fine match’ as they pulled it up.

—

“Awake huh? How are the ribs treating you?” Ryoma asked as he stepped over to the ‘medical tent’ and shrugged off the length of ninja wire. Really it was just his own tent repurposed as an adhoc medical center, one of those big pavilion tents that took less than a minute to set up with chakra strings. He liked it for the space, but didn’t actually use it that often.

A ninja quickly learns how to go the occasional night without sleep for the good of the mission.

After a moment with no reply, he turned to look at the injured team more directly. The team leader was laying back on her back, blankly staring up at the ceiling. The pink and green haired teammates were sitting up, one with her legs pulled up to her chest and the other sitting slumped and cross-legged. A general mood of despair was upon them.

He supposed losing a teammate for the first time would do that. He didn’t remember what he looked like the first time, but it probably wasn’t that much better.

The best thing to do would be to get them back into the mission mindset for a moment. “Team Three. I need a full report. What led to the situation you were in when reinforcements arrived?” He made sure to use his stern voice, grabbing a fold-out chair and pulling it over, plopping himself down in it and bringing the tips of his fingers together in front of him.

That got them to pull themselves up a bit, eyes rising to meet his gaze before dropping a bit. The team leader… Chikako, that’s her name, she spoke. “It’s… It’s my fault sir-“

“Do it properly, genin.” Ryoma interrupted her little session of self-loathing with another stern word. The pink and green haired girls flinched at that.

She swallowed, inclining her head and starting again. “I- Team Three traveled along the road as orders specified, reaching the five kilometer mark and leaving the outlined marker before traveling forwards at standard pace. Some time before actually reaching the mission location, we spotted a large amount of smoke rising in the distance, at the mission site.”

Was there smoke? He supposed the treeline might’ve obscured it too much for him to notice.

“It was- The smoke indicated unknown variables at the mission location, but as there was no immediate evidence of hostiles I made the decision to press forwards and investigate.”

That’s within the letter of what he outlined, but not the spirit. He supposed he was too specific when he said ‘hostiles’ instead of something like ‘indications of danger’. It was just enough confusion for them to decide to push forwards. Still within reason here, he supposed, though judging by the tone he imagined that was going to change soon.

“The lack of underbrush in the vicinity and the direction of the wind indicated that the fire was potentially deliberate- though I felt there was insufficient evidence to actually claim such. We moved forwards despite the protests of the team, and reached the mission location.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Technically correct, neither of those factors alone is sufficient evidence to determine enemy action. It should’ve been enough to start ringing their sense of danger, but that was only something that could be honed with time and experience.

The team leader hesitated for a moment, face scrunching up in well-rooted frustration. “We- The mission location was burned, as the smoke indicated, the compound-complex was clearly and deliberately set aflame, the fires at the very ends still burning and the woodland around the complex untouched. There were no bodies or sounds of evacuation, which I considered odd. I- I determined that our mission was impossible to complete with the current state of the mission-location-“

Good, good. All of this well within reason. He supposed they were ambushed on their way out-

“-I made the decision to perform a single-sweep reconnaissance of the area, to find and evacuate any potential survivors, before we would return…”

Ryoma stared at her, expression well-hidden behind his veil.

Welp. That would certainly do it.