Chapter 34

Sunagakure
Ryoma, Jonin

“I wonder why the village decided to accept this one.” Sato mused, rubbing his chin on the second day of their travel. The desert had started to shift into arid, rocky plains by this point, and the occasional cloud stifled the merciless sun above for brief periods. “Claw is normally Iwa territory, right? Seems kinda risky to be making a move like this, we just got out the last war. This is mostly just a tourist-trap kind of village, right?”

“You are free to wonder.” Captain Arada replied carelessly, hopping over a rock formation and sliding down a hill. The rest of them followed immediately after, kicking up lines of dust behind them. The captain’s tone indicated that he had some insight that the rest of them were no privy too.

Well, insight that Sato and Tsubame were not privy to. Ryoma was almost certain about who the client was and why they were doing this. After all, the destruction of key sites under Iwa influence in Claw were outlined in his wartime drafts, even if the precise specifics were not.

“Well… If you’re trying to puzzle something like that out- it’s best to start with figuring out how Suna will or will not benefit from any given mission.” Ryoma replied with a hint. “Regardless of who the client is, Suna is equally affected by any given mission completion. One of the Kazekage’s duties is filtering out missions that would be ultimately harmful to Suna’s strategic interests, something normally delegated to someone in administration.”

He crouched slightly, cycled his chakra, and kicked off in time with a flexing of the mk3’s legs.

One of the main advantages of wearing puppetarmor that was so form-fitting was that his effective physicality was bolstered by his chakra-strings. The strength, speed, and movement of a puppet was based around effective operation via what was essentially wire-guided telekinesis, not his own physicality.

X plus Y. So long as his timing was consistent, his overall physical performance would be directly enhanced by his skill with chakra-strings, and things that could cripple one variable would not usually cripple the other variable- meaning that his overall survivability was also increased.

In short- puppetarmor worked like power armor.

He soared fifty feet into the air, well over the outcrop that should’ve diverted his path, landing on the other side with a heavy stomp that kicked up a wall of dust. He emerged from it at a running pace, immediately in-line with the rest of his team once more. A leap that barely took any effort on his part, one he could do essentially all day without any strain.

“Stop showing off!” Sato complained. Ryoma’s helmet concealed his crooked grin.

“Most missions accepted have no real strategic benefit to Sunagakure save that someone is paying us to do them.” Ryoma continued without acknowledging his cool little jump. “If a mission this big was approved, then someone in administration decided that its completion will be a net-benefit to Suna. So if you want to figure out why it was accepted, you need to view it from that angle.”

“Angle of completion, huh?” Sato muttered, brows furrowed as he hopped over a creek. “…If we’re attacking Iwa like this… Doesn’t that mean we’re ready to go on the attack against them? We still have Pakura of the Scorch Release, after all…”

“If we’re going on the attack, why would we destroy the bridges before a massed invasion?” Ryoma pointed out with a raised finger. “All that does is slow our own advance into Iwa, and losing the initiative in an invasion would only ramp up the costs involved.”

“Ah- then it’s a defensive measure!” Sato proclaimed, punching his palm. “We’re worried about Iwa making moves against us soon- so we’re pre-empting them by destroying the quickest routes for them to resupply in friendly locations.”

“That would also align with the destruction of the village- Naito is aligned with Iwa interests from what intelligence indicates…” Tsubame mused, twirling over a shrub and slide-hopping back into a normal pace. “Destroying it and the bridges would limit Iwa’s ability to resupply near the border, forcing their supply lines to travel several more days in both directions and discouraging aggressive action against Suna until the bridges and settlement can be rebuilt.”

They managed to figure out the ramifications, but not the reason. There’s no intelligence that he was aware of that indicated Iwa was planning to make aggressive moves against Suna, but if they were discouraged from attacking, then Suna would not have to worry about any of its fellow Great Ninja Villages interfering with its upcoming actions. Konoha was allied to them, and Iwa would be on the defense with nearest resupply pushed back by nearly a week. So long as Suna made no further action against either- they were free to do whatever they wished.

Ryoma decided against explaining this, it probably wasn’t appropriate and the opsec risk if they got captured and interrogated wasn’t really worth it. “Mhm- something like that, for certain.” He agreed with a mild tone. “Might be prudent to start discussing our actual plans for destruction here- how and in what order?”

“My fan is sufficient to destroy each location’s center, but the sprawling nature of the village will leave survivors.” Captain Arada stated bluntly, turning his head slightly to glance at him. “For this reason, you will employ the Kyojutsu to assist in the extermination of the survivors. Allowing any witnesses to flee will compromise the secrecy of the mission.”

A familiar feeling crept up in his chest. Cold and empty. “Are you certain, Team Leader? That would compromise the potential secrecy of the Kyojutsu itself should unforeseen factors interfere and prevent total eradication of the objective.”

“I am certain.” Captain Arada confirmed sternly. “If unforeseen factors interfere to such an extent, then the Kyojutsu would likely need to be employed regardless to ensure extraction. More importantly, the Kyojutsu will speed the destruction of the objective, allowing the team to extract earlier. It is more wise to employ it than not in this instance.”

So that’s how it was then. Ryoma knew Captain Arada well enough by brief meetings and reputation- when he declared a direct order, he did not rescind it. He inclined his head shallowly. “I see. And the destruction of the other two locations? We will need to travel several days to reach both.”

“We will move quickly.”

“…If I may offer a suggestion, Team Leader. A somewhat niche application of the Summoning Technique would allow me to summon myself to a location, provided I have a sand clone present.” He nodded slightly. “I cannot effectively control the clone at such a distance, but I can send a mental command to it to perform the summon jutsu, which it will perform as soon as the command reaches it many seconds later. I can destroy the furthest bridge and then summon myself to Naito Village, if you can carry my insensate sand clone the distance and keep it alive until it is time to attack.”

“Wait- you can do that with the Summoning Jutsu?!” Sato asked with an amazed expression. “That would cut off days of travel here!”

“For one person, with a high delay, at a predetermined time or signal, requiring a large amount of preparation to actually utilize.” Ryoma added with a shake of his head. Flying Thunder God, it most certainly wasn’t. “It’s a useful facilitator-technique, but niche as I said.”

“I would be unable to protect you after you summon yourself- not until I link up with the rest of the team once more.” Tsubame declared sternly, glaring into the side of his head. “I do not like this plan.”

“I’ll be with Captain Arada and Sato after I summon myself.” Ryoma countered with a shake of his head. “You can escort me to the furthest bridge and then exfiltrate after its destruction, if anything it’s you who will be in the most danger here, moving through Claw Country alone.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, a sharp glare attempting to cut through his solid metal helmet. Naturally, as she didn’t have a doujutsu, her sharp glare was ineffective against his armor.

“Are you certain you are capable of this, Jonin Ryoma?” Captain Arada asked with a firm stare. Ryoma’s reply was interrupted as Arada leapt high into the air, unfolding the immense iron fan on his back and flipping over to stay on top of it.

The reason for the sudden acrobatics was obvious- with the wide crack in the earth that groaned before them. Smoothly, Ryoma reached out with strings and grabbed both Sato and Tsubame, tossing them hard through the air in a parabolic arc. “Throwing you.” He stated bluntly.

“Wha- AAAHHHHHHH!!!” Sato exclaimed as he tumbled through the air, spinning as he was tossed.

Tsubame let out a slightly more dignified sound as she rightened herself “Whuh!”

Teammates tossed, Ryoma bent his legs, tensed his thighs, and flexed his feet. A massive, low-angle leap sent him forwards over the gap fast enough to make the wind hiss outside of his helmet. He flipped once through the air, controlling his angles with the strings on his armor, and landing feet-first on the other side. Another massive plume of dust came to life where he impacted, significantly obscuring his vision.

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“Catching you.” He called out again. A net of strings extended from his fingers and latched onto his teammates as they fell, correcting their posture and momentum as he started stomping forwards again, out of the cloud of dust. After a few seconds of letting them get accustomed to their new facing, he dropped them to run on their own.

They were openly glaring at him, brushing themselves off as they dashed alongside him.

He couldn’t ‘lift’ himself with his chakra strings and thus fly in defiance of gravity, but he could still control himself in the air to a degree with them, namely in angle and positioning. It was somewhat difficult to explain what separated the two types of movement, and he hadn’t figured out all the exact specifics of it quite yet. Everytime he thinks he does, he runs straight into another edge-case interaction that he hadn’t anticipated prior.

The inventor of Puppetry, Monzaemon, could allegedly fly himself around with puppetry strings no problem, but there was no way of verifying if that was actually true.

The Captain dropped out of the sky in front of them, landing smoothly and resuming his earlier running pace.

“I’m confident I can do this- I use the technique semi-regularly for mission extractions.” Ryoma replied now that the obstacle had been overcome.