Chương 11: Chapter 8

Border between Fire Country and Tea Country Ryoma, Recently Promoted Ninja Their unconscious allies were graciously allowed to rest on one of the noble carts- the luggage packed away in one of his basic storage seals to make room and everyone setting out bright and early the following day. Ryoma had deployed five Bolters instead, having the extra two latch onto various spots and hang inactive while he wasn't using them.

This would allow him to deploy replacements faster if he needed them, which he almost certainly would. While camp was being broken, and before they had set out again, Ryoma had made the executive decision to make preparations for their potential enemies.

"We're ready to head out now, Ryoma." The voice of Kurenai called out to him from the side. Ryoma didn't look up to greet her, gaze and attention fixed on his brushwork of the fifth seal-tag he had decided to make.

"Give me a moment." He had been hoping to get six done, but five was good enough for most purposes.

"Making preparations."

"... Seals?" Kurenai asked with a slightly curious lit to her voice.

"Hm-mh." He hummed affirmatively.

"If those bandits show up again, I'm going to be needed to fight off the mouthy woman. That leaves you kids to deal with naked boom man, and none of you have a good answer for him as far as I can tell."

"... I see, thank you, but what do the seals do?" The girl had a strange tone at that, before focusing her attention on the slips of paper in his hand. A bunch of black squiggles surrounding an empty center.

"I should probably explain this all at once." He huffed, pushing up from his crouch, cracking his back loudly, and then calling out.

"Konoha Ninja! Strategy Meeting!" He ignored the glances sent over by the gathered servants, brushing the hair of their mistresses and applying cosmetics and whatever other stuff a noble woman needed in the morning. A few seconds later, both Raido and Asuma were in front of him, as was the giant fluffy form of Chairomaru. Ryoma made sure to hold up the seals for all of them to see, not handing them off yet.

"Subject?" Asuma asked quickly, eyes slightly stressed from a lack of good sleep, but still sharp.

"Naked boom man- I don't think any of you have a good answer for fighting him, am I right?" Ryoma asked, his answer coming in a few disgruntled hums and shifts in posture. He raised a hand to rub the back of his neck.

"Right, pop-quiz time. How do you make an explosive seal?"

"... You put a jutsu shiki on a strip of paper, right?" Asuma asked with furrowed brows, glancing at the slips in his hand. Ryoma raised a finger and shook his back and forth.

"You're thinking of an explosive tag, those are more common and usually pretty standardized these days. I'm talking about explosive seals. Sealing, not Jutsu Shiki."

"Sealing..? Then you…" Kurenai began with her own uncertain look, glancing over at her teammates before her eyes returned to his.

"You'd seal an explosion in a tag, right?"

"How do you seal an explosion?" Raido asked with a slightly baffled expression.

"You… have it near the explosion as it goes off?"

"Yes actually." Ryoma nodded.

"You make an empty explosive seal, prime it, then explode something nearby. The seal absorbs the explosion the moment after it begins, containing it until you want to release it later. The benefits are usually that you can put things like expanding poison gas inside and such." He waved a little hand, kinda enjoying the moment of lecturing.

"So then those are-" Asuma began pointing at the tags in his hands. Ryoma nodded.

"Empty explosive seals, ready for you to use against naked boom man." He handed them over to Kurenai, who took them and inspected them carefully.

"When you're ready to use them, handsigns are Rat, Bird, Snake Tiger. They'll be primed and ready to suck in the next explosion that touches them- best used right next to the origin."

"So slapped on his body." Asuma replied with a sharper focus than before.

"What about releasing the explosion afterwards?"

"Rat, like a normal explosive tag. They'll also cook off if sufficiently damaged after being filled- like another explosion hitting them." Ryoma nodded.

"Only had time to make five of the things, but that's probably all you'll need for him. I'm fairly certain he's not immune to explosions from other things- so one stuck to his back will probably kill him outright, if you can get it there. I'll leave that part up to you."

"... And you're just giving these to us?" Raido asked with a slightly suspicious look. Ryoma looked blankly at him, then at the seals, before raising a hand and rubbing the back of his neck.

"... Yes? It's just some explosive seals. It's not exactly a hidden jutsu here."

"I- it still feels kinda weird." Raido averted his gaze, raising a hand to scratch his cheek.

"We were at war a few weeks ago, so…" Ryoma rolled his eyes and one hand dismissively.

"Konoha has the Yellow Flash, Toad Sage, Red Hot Habanero- anything I make is going to be trash compared to the sealing-monsters you guys consistently produce. I'm handing you something that's about as valuable as a kunai here, to my temporary allies defend the clients against a potential threat while I'm forced to deal with something else." He shrugged.

"Hell- bomberman might not even be alive right now. I hit him with a paralytic and he jumped into a river. Entirely possible he drowned and these preparations are pointless. If you still feel iffy about it, you can just hand me the spare back after the mission is done, alright?"

"It's more that it feels strange that you're being helpful here-" Asuma began, raising his hands to cut Ryoma off before continuing.

"I know it's benefiting you too, but normally people still carry a few grudges after a war."

"Ah." Ryoma nodded.

"I see your confusion." He gave a little rueful huff and shrug.

"Grudges don't pay the bills, it's really as simple as that." He had around a decade of economic recession to look forward to, he really couldn't afford to sweat the small stuff like getting revenge.

"As simple as that, huh?" Asuma muttered, reaching up to scratch his own head.

"... Mind me asking how old you actually are?"

"Hm…" Ryoma considered.

"Only if you don't tell Mari- it's a running gag at this point."

"Hah! Promise." Asuma crossed over his heart, as did the amused other genin and the dog.

"I'll be sixteen next june." Ryoma huffed amusedly, seeing the looks on their faces before gesturing over his shoulder. He was probably about their same age, and two promotion-stages higher. Unfairly too, because he really wasn't Jonin material just quite yet- maybe in another year or something he'd be worth the new vest.

"Anyways- Head out, it's another week till we reach the capital."""" Right.""" And a bark. — Raido had called a missing arm a 'career ending injury' and while that clearly wasn't actually true, it did indicate an overall attitude that meant Ryoma would be wise to refrain from carving out a new puppetarm for his maimed comrade while on the road.

If they thought something as basic as a missing limb was career-ending, then they didn't know puppetlimbs were a thing, and that was the kind of tactical advantage that the Kazekage would be very sour with him for revealing to Konoha. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. A missing limb being career ending was a really stupid thing to claim.

Firstly you didn't need all four limbs to fight effectively, you didn't even need both hands to make handseals so long as you were sufficiently skilled. And if you lose a leg you just need to put a peg on if nothing less. That was ignoring all the potential jutsu that could be developed to just summon a replacement limb made out of… he didn't know, sand or something. Clone techniques were fairly universal across the shinobi world, summoning just a cloned arm only one step further.

Sure, it would take chakra to maintain, but then you had a limb that could be used as a weapon without long term consequences. If it broke, who cared? It was already a summoned limb. There was probably a limitless number of potential tricks you could pull with a summoned limb like that. That was also ignoring all the options to replace the arm in other ways, grafting someone else's arm on was possible, as was injecting someone with regenerative cells and growing the arm back.

There were probably another few methods to get an arm back that he wasn't even considering at the moment. And that was ignoring the fact that the kids had seen him puppet things around, the Bolters. Bolters have limbs. Did they think he was… He didn't even know. It seemed like common sense that a limb could be replaced in this manner, there was basically nothing stopping it other than learning how to make chakra strings and operate puppet limbs.

But, the statement and tone indicated that the kid thought it was a much more serious injury than it actually was, so Ryoma was obligated to not dispel that belief so that Suna could maintain a potential tactical and strategic advantage moving forwards. So instead of doing that, he kept himself busy by organizing his bulk storage into non-bulk storage scrolls.

He was able to do this from his seated position on top of the central cart, directly above their injured comrades and in the best position to rapidly respond to anything that attacked them from any potential angle. Kunai, shuriken, senbon all went into their own seals inside the 'weapons and ammo' scroll, bolter-fragments went into the 'recycling' scroll, tree-trunks stayed in bulk storage, corpses went into 'corpses', and so on.

All very clean and neatly organized, freeing up slots in his bulk storage scroll to quickly store other things in the future. The most important scroll, the one containing the Wood Dragoon, was in his quick-draw holster and ready to be pulled out and deployed at a moment's notice. Letting the Konoha ninja see it would be unfortunate, but unfortunate circumstances were better than a failed mission.

It would be a shame if he had to pull it out around them though, so far only Suna ninja have seen it and survived to his knowledge. Which sounded a lot more boastful than it really was, most ninja simply weren't prepared to suddenly deal with a trooper in primitive power armor and by the time it was deployed they were usually tired or committed to finishing the fight.

It was completely understandable why a sudden phase two that was more difficult than the first phase would be so effective in a world without respawns. Yet. There were a few bullshit jutsu that could just revive the dead because fuck you, and Ryoma was hoping he never needed to deal with any of them. If he did need to deal with them- there was a reason he had decided to learn as much as he could about Sealing. Hard to revive something that was in a scroll.

He still wasn't very good at it, but the investment had been paying off in enough ways over the years that he couldn't consider it a waste.

"Rock on the road up ahead." He called out, pausing in his sorting endeavours for a moment with a little scowl.

"Any of you kiddies strong enough to move it, or are we gonna have to cut it apart?" Before any of the other ninja could respond, the old samurai spoke up with the kind of disgruntled huff that only old men could make.

"I'll remove it." He grumbled, continuing forwards even as the little caravan slowed to a stop before the impressive bolder in the middle of the road.

"We'll leave it to you then, Master Samurai." Ryoma responded with a polite nod from his perch.

"Master?" The old samurai grumbled as he stepped up to the rock, inspecting it gruffly and pacing around.

"No- this one is much too clumsy to be a master." He didn't sound particularly upset by the admission, announcing it as a statement of fact more than a declaration of weakness.

"Ah, forgive me, I'm not certain of how I should address you, mister Samurai." Ryoma called out apologetically as the samurai took up a slightly wide stance on the left-hand side of the giant rock.

"Hrmph." The old samurai grunted, old and wrinkled face pulling tight in concentration. He pulled his hands together after a widely-circling gesture, knuckles curled in but palms flat, and cocked his entire body back like a spring.

"... This one is Sarutobi Sanjuro." Asuma made a sound at that- a sound that was immediately cut off by the crack-boom as the old samurai blurred into motion. One moment he was in a ready stance, and in the next the double-palm strike was complete and extended with an ear-ringing sound. Most importantly, the boulder was gone. Ryoma's eyes flickered over to the far side of the crevasse, just in time to see a massive rock smash against the far side and collapse into gravel.

It slid down immediately after, plunging into the river far below as many thousands of small pebbles and leaving only the crater as evidence of its impact. The old samurai slowly exhaled afterwards, then calmly returned to a more neutral stance with his hands pressed together and his eyes closed. After a few moments of silence, he opened his eyes and huffed.

"The road is cleared." Ryoma could practically feel the smug radiating off Madam Gozen from underneath him.

"That's incredibly impressive, mister Sarutobi. I know I certainly can't hit that hard."

"Three years on a rock." The old samurai shook his head, walking back over to the side of the cart.

"Hohoho~" Madam Gozen announced loudly from below. Ryoma could tell that she had raised a hand to her face just from the laugh.

"It's only natural that my bodyguard is the best!"

"Indeed, I imagine he has to spend a lot of time protecting you." Ryoma called back with a tiny smile hidden under his veil. There were a few moments of quiet, then some shuffling, then her head poked out from the side of the cart to glare at him directly.

"What's that supposed to mean, hm?!"

"Ah- Tsuchi, don't fall!" His client called out, muffled slightly by the roof between them.

"Oh, nothing really." Ryoma shook his head.

"You just seem like the type who likes to travel." He easily lied.

"Hnnnnn…" She hummed out, glaring at him suspiciously as she slowly sank beneath the side of the 'roof' and shuffled back to her seated position below him.

"Sanjuro, you have my full permission to cut that one down if he tries anything suspicious!"

"This one understands." The old samurai responded with a gruff tone, the tiniest twitch in his long mustache telling Ryoma that he was suppressing a smirk.

"I don't think I've done a suspicious thing in my entire life." Ryoma replied with an amused tone.

"That would be ridiculous, a ninja would never lie, cheat, steal, or harm someone. Unless you're thinking of some other suspicious things."

"You lie so easily!" Lady Ikeda called out with a laugh, the shuffling and giggling telling him that she had fallen back in a fit of giggles.

"Susp-" Lady Gozen began, before her voice cut off. They turned around the bend in the road, revealing a field of charred black road and mounds of death. This must be where they had confronted that bandit group yesterday, very efficiently too from the lack of injuries and the piles.

He extended chakra strings as they passed the corpse-field that the Konoha Genin had left in their wake, the littered remains of a few dozen charred bandits wasn't exactly his idea of 'good loot', but there was little point in not taking them as they passed along. Into bulk-storage they go, where he'll dump them out back in Sunagakure for body processing and handling. There was a small cash reward for bringing bodies back- nothing more useful for medical practice.

His strings levitated corpses, weapons, discarded bits of rubbish, and all manner of other soot-covered things as they passed by. All of which was stacked upon fresh seals and then sealed away with a little poof of white smoke.

"They didn't come back for the bodies." Raido observed from the side, speaking at pretty normal volume but clearly heard over the mostly-silent trip. The only real noise was the spinning of the carriage wheels.

"Disposables probably." Ryoma mused.

"Either they were hired on for the job, or they're just not considered all that important regardless."

"... How awful." One of the servants muttered from below and behind him. Ryoma figured it would probably be a bad idea to tell them that this wasn't even in the top ten for worst battlefield aftermath's that he had seen. Soon enough, they had passed by the killing field, corpses and slag all hauled up by his strings as they passed and sealed away, and reached the bridge again, and the killing field that he had left behind even earlier yesterday.

Corpse-piles staked through with blades and spears and barbs, all strewn out and covering the wooden platform in blood. He checked the underside of the bridge with one of his Bolters, seeing nothing in particular. He then extended one as high as he could above himself, observing the miles of woodland, mountains, and not much else. The Bolters behind and to their sides saw nothing either.

"Clear." He called out."""Clear""" Came three calls from his fellow ninja. And an affirmative bark. He quickly got to work gathering up the corpses and sealing them away in the bulk seal. If all else failed he could unleash a few to act as improvised puppets, but that was a pretty big disaster scenario. Oh look, his bolters here were still in-tact. Yoink. He'd reload them after these corpses were put away.