Chapter 36

Claw Country
Ryoma, Jonin

Left arm gauntlet shattered, panopticon helmet shattered, front torso armor cracked. He was pretty sure that he was suffering fractures in all of those areas as well, but the chakra pill made it hard to tell at the moment.

He jumped again, leaping over a broad expanse of terrain and wincing at the sharp pain in his ribs and arm when he landed. He did not let himself stop moving, tucking the toad-gourd under one arm and withdrawing a scroll. It was getting difficult to keep the fingers on his damaged arm moving, which would cripple his ability to perform handseals.

He scrolled through the… scroll. Eventually he reached the slot in question, tapped a thumb on the slot, and withdrew a medical pill. He forced his damaged mask open and crunched it down as he leapt again.

The pill was a general utility pain killer, antibiotic, and metabolic booster. The pain killer and antibiotic components were self explanatory, but the metabolic booster actually increased the rate at which ninja healed by a fractional but measurable percent. Primary ingredients of the medical pill included garlic extract, caffeine, honey for taste, and opium.

It wasn’t anything near what an actual medical ninjutsu could do, but it would keep him functional long enough to catch up, complete the objective, and then crash hard.

Surprising no one, Jiraiya of the Sannin hit very hard. Ryoma was going to be feeling this for a while after. He glanced down at the Toad Gourd, staring up at him with unblinking and unimpressed eyes, and briefly considered trying to figure out how to unseal Captain Arada right now.

On one hand, it would give him strong backup to aid extraction. On the other hand, he was still pretty close to the village, and getting Arada out right now might just provoke counter-orders to go back and complete the objective, undoing all his hard work to retrieve him from the Toad Sage. Ryoma really didn’t feel like letting that happen, so the best move would be to catch up to Sato and be far enough away that the Captain declares the objective infeasible before trying to figure out how to unseal him.

He tucked the scroll back into his flak vest, carefully testing all of his fingers as a numbness began to slowly spread out through his chest. His subsequent leaps and dashes through the Claw countryside provoked slightly less pain than before.

It would be a full day and a half before they reached the next objective, and he was going to crash long before that. Once he had crashed, he’d be pretty useless for the rest of the mission.

First, he needed to find and link up with Sato again. The Mk2 had a Sensor-Shiki with a range of about three kilometers mounted in the cockpit, but summoning it into this situation was explicitly against Arada’s orders, and probably not for the best regardless. He should really get around to learning how to perform that jutsu on his own, tactical information was always going to be useful.

In the meanwhile…

He bit his thumb, forcing his hands through the right signs and palmed the ground as he landed. “Summoning, Great Bolter!”

The basic bolter was a masterpiece of technical refinement. Ryoma was pretty sure he was never going to top the utility of something so cheap, disposable, and omni-useful. Even the upgraded bolters that incorporated poison gas canisters weren’t strictly an upgrade with the increased cost.

The ‘Great Bolter’ design was perhaps the complete opposite of the basic bolter. It was a big expensive puppet that contained everything he knew about various ninja arts. The primary reason that it existed at all was so he could have something like the mk1 without needing permission to pull out the mk2, a great big puppet full of expensive things that let him fight lots of weaker ninja and smaller summons.

He had three great bolters currently stored in a workshop-bunker underneath the inn.

He landed on the top of a massive wooden frame, three meters tall, three meters wide, and five meters long. It contained an armored box that connected to six blocky legs, a swivel mount on top to hold a large cannon-adjacent structure, several eyes built along the sides, and a decent amount of interior space for him to hide in.

It was basically a tank with legs. He slipped through the hatch in the roof and settled into the ‘drivers’ seat below, groaning with the motion and reaching out with strings to take control. His vision expanded out omnidirectionally once more, and the legs flexed to push the massive puppet into a standing position.

Then, the legs folded in and the wheels folded out, turning the wooden tank with legs into a wooden tank with wheels. Another application of his strings, and the rotor for each set of wheels began to turn, driving the Great Bolter onwards through the countryside without an engine.

The roads were very bumpy and his suspension wasn’t great. He was very glad that he couldn’t feel much at the moment. He focused on breathing as he drove along towards the final objective, disregarding most stealth for simply moving faster and with less strain at the moment.

As big and comparatively loud as the Great Bolter was- it was massively more quiet than any conventional vehicle, mostly because it didn’t need an engine of any kind and was mostly wood by weight. Only a thin layer of steel plating on the exterior, the joints, and frame were actually metal, making it quite a bit lighter than it should be as a result.

He twitched the single-bulb electric light on, near the back of the interior.

Great Bolters were only barely worth building, being a great big target with limited mobility and armor only thick enough to bounce off low grade attacks. All the same old problems that the old Wood Dragoon had, but worse because they were somewhat larger and not quite as bad because they were much faster overland. He had been thinking of making a flying model using propellers, but experimenting with flight wasn’t something he had much time for recently.

He could save flight for the mk2 of the Great Bolters.

The inner frame rocked like a ship in a stormy sea as the legs unfolded and the Great Bolter jumped, aided by onboard shiki-thrusters, clearing a section of broken road and smashing back onto the ground beyond it, clumsily shifting back to wheeled mode afterwards. Tools and utensils behind him clattered, and the bedframes rocked about noisily.

The interior was essentially a micro apartment. With no need to account for an engine, he could fit in all his quality of life features like one bed, some storage, and a single stovetop.

He continued to roll along the road that was in no way designed to handle a vehicle of this scale, keeping an eye out for-

Ah, there he is.

The Great Bolter pushed out its legs again, slamming clawed hands into the ground as it skid to a stop along the road, leaving grooves in the earth as it did. Ryoma rocked around in the command chair as it did, eventually coming to a stop with vision swimming.

Shaking the dust out of his ears, he pushed up from the seat and popped out the hatch. “Sato! Get in!” He called out to the dark wilderness. “Forty-seven-B” He called out the predesignated password.

A few moments later, the ever-squinting genin poked his head out of some distant foliage. “Ryoma- what the hell is that?!”

“Puppet-transport! Get in, we need to move!” He growled, sliding back down into the command chair immediately after. A few moments after, the nervous genin landed on the top of the Great Bolter, cautiously moving to the hatch and poking his head through. After a moment of nervous inspection, he slipped through. Ryoma made the hatch slam closed behind him, immediately pulling the legs of the Great Bolter up and spinning the wheels along again.

“Eah-!” Sato exclaimed as he was rocked by the sudden acceleration, balancing himself out after a moment. “What th- there’s a whole apartment in here! Did you make a train with legs?!”

“More or less.” Ryoma grunted, tongue feeling heavy in his mouth, the numbness had already reached his head. He grabbed the Toad Gourd from under his arm and tossed it back. “-Captain Arada is sealed in that- try getting him out.”

Sato fumbled with it. “Captain Arada is- He got captured!?”

“Briefly.” Ryoma explained with a pained furrow to his brows. “Start by uncorking it or something- I don’t know how it works and I’m going to crash sooner or later from the chakra pill.”

“Chakra- fucking-” Sato growled, shaking his head and sitting down on the floor of the Great Bolter to inspect the Toad Gourd. “I’m not a sealing expert, how the hell am I supposed to figure this out?!” He complained.

“It’s not a seal, it’s a barrier.” Ryoma corrected, head rocking about from the holes in the road. “Just pop the cork and see where that gets you!”

A pop behind his head, followed by a burst of smoke and the sound of sandals landing on wood. Someone fell back on the floor, coughing with the new smoke that filled the interior.

“…Genin Sato, Jonin Ryoma.” The growly voice of Captain Arada came out behind him. “Report.”

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“The Toad Sage captured you in a Toad Gourd, team leader. After a brief skirmish, I was able to retrieve the gourd and escape, whereupon I summoned the Great Bolter for transportation.” Ryoma began to explain, eyes closed and vision focused entirely through the puppet-eyes that lined the Great Bolter’s frame. Those were not subject to his own physical frailties, and much more stable right now as a result. “I met with Genin Sato, who was able to free you after a brief time with the Gourd- I took a chakra pill and medical pill earlier. I suspect I have fractures in my left arm, ribs, and a concussion.”

The entire frame of the Great Bolter rocked as they swerved around a hilly road, the wood groaning as it was strained.

Captain Arada stepped into his line of sight, the old glower leaning close to his face. “Open your eyes.” Ryoma obeyed, and the captain looked into them for a few moments, before nodding and pulling back. “Your suspicions were correct, you are suffering a concussion.”

“Oh, that’s good.” Ryoma replied, closing his eyes again and rocking in the padded seat as they sped down a hillside.