Chương 2: Chapter 1

Sunagakure Ryoma, Recently Promoted Ninja"You'll be working with Special Jonin Mari for this mission." The Kazekage began promptly, and as soon as he arrived. It was good fortune that he woke up before his alarm clock went off, and better fortune that he had just enough time to pack everything and throw himself down the road to arrive in time. He had set his alarm for eight am. Eight am was when he was supposed to be present, not waking up.

If anyone noticed his disheveled state, they were nice enough to not comment on it.

"A Court Noble in the Sand capital has requested the services of two Jonin to escort her to Tea country and back." The Kazekage continued, moving through a stack of paperwork to withdraw the contract-paper in question and sliding it across the table.

"She is offering two hundred thousand ryo for the completion, you are to meet her in one week's time in the capital. The relevant details are secured inside." He finished by tapping the storage-seal that had been stamped onto the bottom of the page, then pulling back.

"Understood. Anything else Lord Kazekage?" Ryoma, as the ranking Jonin, spoke the formal reply. He reached forwards and took up the page, glancing down and scanning the summary again before dropping it low against his torso.

"No. Dismissed." A pair of quick salutes later and Ryoma and his assigned partner were walking out the door. Special Jonin, despite the name, was a half-rank below normal Jonin. It indicated Jonin level capabilities in a limited field, but not enough capabilities in other fields to be offered a full Jonin ranking. Judging from the giant fan carried on her back, 'Mari' was a Special Jonin because of her ability to throw great blasts of elemental wind around.

Considering the request, what he knew of himself, and what he knew of his assigned partner, Ryoma was pretty sure he had been promoted just so the village would have two 'Jonin' to go do this job. The village got a fifteen percent cut from all Jonin upon mission completion, that would mean an extra thirty-thousand ryo for this. Not a large sum when dealing with city-scale economies, but any extra helped. Probably.

"Jonin Ryoma huh? I don't think I've heard of you before." Mari was just a bit older than him, judging by her build, face, and voice. She had the kind of somewhat matured voice that a woman in her early twenties would. She was about average in height, which meant he was a good eight inches taller. People were short here.

"I could say the same." Ryoma replied fairly casually, eyes scanning the contract-page a few more times before looking up to meet her gaze. Like many others in Sunagakure, her skin was a healthy tan and her hair was a sandy sort of blonde, pulled back in a great fuzzy bun. Her eyes were dark enough to be indistinguishable from black, and she wore her headband… His eyes scanned her up and down briefly, taking in her outfit.

Jonin vest, loose baggy sleeves tied off at the ends to prevent sand from getting inside, a traditional sort of dress-bottom, and combat-sandals. There in the rough middle of her torso, halfway-hidden beneath her open vest, was a metal plate with the symbol of Sunagakure etched into the surface. … As a waist-belt, it seemed.

"Your voice!" She declared with a mildly astonished tone, leaning forwards and trying to get a better look at his eyes.

"I couldn't tell with the veil, but you're really young aren't you?" The veil she was referencing was basically just a white sheet that hung under his eyes and tied behind his ears. The bottom was loose for air circulation, but could be tied down to help protect against sandstorms. It was excellent for keeping him cool and shaded when combined with his cool wide-brimmed straw hat. The hat was a little bit crumbled from the time he forgot to seal it away before hopping into the Wood Dragoon, but that was fine.

It was still a really cool and practical hat.

"I'm in my thirties." He set up, tilting his head slightly to look down at her more effectively. She blinked, pulling back slightly.

"... Oh. Really?"

"No." He tapped a thumb on the seal and fed it a hair of chakra, provoking a poof of smoke and the unleashing of the contents within. Chakra was the nebulous stuff that fueled all sorts of ninja-magic, a reservoir of energy formed from a combination of physical and mental fitness. It was important to note that 'fitness' didn't really mean the same thing as 'health', otherwise the various nutcases that were average ninja would be operating with pretty meager reserves of Chakra most of the time.

Mental fitness was not the same as being a normal, well-adjusted, functioning member of society, which was great for antisocial cynics like himself. He was pretty proud of his reserves, overall, he made sure to keep in good shape and that gave him a reasonable amount of mystical stamina to fuel his personal brand of ninja-magic.

"Pft." His assigned partner rolled with the little joke.

"Yeah alright. Now how old are you actually?" She asked, poking him in the arm with a little grin.

"Hm." He pretended to not hear her, instead focusing his attention on the details of their contract. Sure enough, the Lady Yuko was the niece of someone significantly more important, a bachelorette in her late thirties who liked tea and sweets a bit more than she probably should. There was a slightly unflattering heft to this woman, from the quickly-sketched picture in the scroll.

"Is that the clien-oh." Mari was a bit quicker to verbalize her judgement, looking from the side down at the scroll in his hands. He angled the scroll to let her see it slightly better, and she pulled a bit of a face at the woman's appearance. Beauty standards in the various ninja villages were fairly high. When almost everyone was athletic, toned, and often specifically trained for seduction if the need arose, normal people usually fell by the wayside by not being quite so well-shaped.

"I hope she has a carriage…" Mari muttered, brows furrowed and lips pulled down in a concerned scowl.

"... and a few people to pull it."

"Capital is five days away. We have a week to get there, giving us two days of leeway." He quickly figured, handing the scroll over to her for her own reading as he talked.

"Do you have any other preparations to make before we head out?"

"Nope. I got everything I need in my scrolls." Mari replied with a little nod, eyes scanning over the letters.

"Well I have one- I haven't picked up my daily rations yet." Mari looked up from the scroll, looking at him with furrowed brows.

"You eat those things?" She asked with a slightly concerned tone.

"Y-you know you don't have to, right?"

"It's free food." He explained simply.

"Why would I not eat them?"

"I- because it's gross? You're a Jonin, you should be making enough to eat normal food, right?"

"I like eating rations. They taste fine. It's rice, meat, vegetables, and assorted bits of other stuff- That's everything you need to make a decent meal." He counted out on his fingers as he spoke.

"It's weird and canned! It's got weird ration-flavor! D-do you eat anything else? Anything except rations?" She waved her hands about in a comical fashion.

"Hm. Sweet Potatoes."

"Ah." Her face smoothed out slightly, a little huffy smile on her face.

"Well at least you're eating something that's normal to enjoy."

"I'm not really a fan of sweet potatoes. Sweets in general I shy away from." He admitted, a tiny smile on his face but voice carefully flat.

"I eat them for the health benefits."

"Bwuh-""If they came in a more convenient shape, like a hardened block in a wrapper or something, I'd like them more." He raised his hands before him, using index fingers and thumbs to form a rectangle.

"Stop talking!" —"Judging from the fan, a wind specialist right?" He asked as they made their way beyond the front gates of the hidden village, setting into the desert during the early-morning chill. Fuuton, wind-release, was one of the five primary elemental natures. It was the most common elemental affinity for ninjas of Sunagakure, and thus the one he was most practiced in and knew the most ninja-magic techniques for. His actual affinity, earth, was slightly rarer and substantially less-practiced as a result.

"Heh, I suppose it was kinda obvious, huh?" She chuckled, taking a sip of her canteen before securing it back to her belt again.

"You got it right, I'm pretty scary with this fan of mine." She bragged, reaching back to pat the four-foot long specialized wind-tool. The fans were effectively shortcuts to performing certain wind jutsu, their faces bearing jutsu-shiki that would produce specific effects when fed chakra and moved in specific ways. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Jutsu-shiki was the cousin-art to Sealing, or perhaps brother, or perhaps wider category.

It was effectively the same as just putting a specific ninja-magic spell into a written form which would be activated at a later date. The usual downside to this was that you couldn't perform the technique without the object in hand, the usual upside was that it could let you skip many of the funny gestures required to perform said ninja-magic normally.

A five handseal jutsu like 'wind cutter' became a wave of the fan instead, the benefits fairly obvious to anyone who thinks about how fiddly doing five specific hand gestures rapidly in the middle of a fight would be. Of course, if you just practiced more you wouldn't need hand gestures at all but… Eh. Not everyone was talented, he certainly had no room to talk.

"Anything else?"

"I might not look it, but I'm a menace in hand-to-hand!" She continued, raising up her hands as fists and punching the air for a bit.

"I've put big and tough ronin on their asses before!"

"I see." No mention of other elemental techniques, or illusions, or anything else. Just blasting people with wind and throwing punches. Mid-range support then, not an awful backup to have.

"I'm a puppeteer specialized in close-range combat, with a number of wind and earth release techniques for support. I have a handful of genjutsu, also for support, and a fair amount of hand-to-hand ability. Please tell me if you touch any of my weapons- the poison isn't lethal but it does cause long term paralysis if you don't take the antidote in time."

A paralytic was more effective than a purely lethal poison, both because a ninja that can't move is dead anyways, and it left them alive for capture at his leisure. Her eyebrows continued to rise as he spoke, until eventually they disappeared behind her loose bangs.

"Eh? That sounds like a lot. I suppose that's a full-blown Jonin for you." He briefly considered telling her how recent his promotion was, before deciding against hurting her feelings.

"I had a lot of motivation to learn." He spoke noncommittally.

"Hey, hey, now I'm really curious about how old you are!" She reached over and poked at his side again, prodding the shoulder pad of his Jonin vest. He had eventually decided to just seal it away with his hat whenever he got the Wood Dragoon out, no real need to make outrageous and expensive modifications to anything quite yet. Maybe after this next job and the repair bills. After a moment, she realized that he wasn't about to answer that question, and stuck her tongue out at him.

"What do you mean by 'close combat puppeteer' anyways? What are your puppets like?" He considered showing her the Wood Dragoon right now, but it was honestly way too early in the day to be bringing it out. Instead he reached into his vest, pulled out a scroll, and unfurled it. A brief puff of smoke later, and he was holding the spiderlike form of one of his Bolters. Model number… one thousand and two by the looks of it. Six legged and a bit spindly.

This one was partially made of teak and incorporated a senbon launcher as its primary weapon. They were on sale that day, from what he remembered. He was careful to show the explosive tag at the bottom of the main body, before handing it over to let her inspect.

"I call it a Bolter- I have fifteen with me. They shoot and then explode." He explained, carefully watching to make sure she didn't trigger something by accident.

"... It's kinda cute." She commented, raising its limp form up before her and turning it about for inspection.

"I get it now. You use these buggers to support you while fighting up close, kinda an inverse from normal puppetry." She grinned at him.

"That's kinda respectable, yanno? Normally you puppeteers are a bunch of wimps!" Her statement was basically correct, overall, she just didn't know about Wood Dragoon yet.

"Absolutely, I'm a delicate little boy, you know?" He agreed with an easy nod, reaching over to take 1002 back and put him back in the magic containment scroll.

"Pft!" Mari muffled her laughter with her fingers.

"I think if you yelled at me, I'd die on the spot." He nodded casually, eyes closed.

"My poor little heart would give out, and I'd drop right there." She was struggling to contain her laughter, cheeks flushed and entire body wiggling with the effort of suppressing her humored reaction.

"I think if you said the word 'fuck', I'd explode." He finished with a solemn nod. It was too much, and she lost the battle at last.

"Bwahahahahahah!" He had a little smile on his face, watching her stumble after him, unbalanced and giggling. He gave it fifty-fifty odds she died on this mission. — Most of his ninja-magic spells, jutsu, were pretty specialized for desert living. They were commonly taught to anyone in the Suna ninja academy who bothered to ask by teachers who usually wanted to be anywhere else at the time, most often in the form of handing over a scroll to study and then giving pointers every few hours.

Like many other teachers, they usually didn't care all that much but wouldn't go out of their way to sabotage you. It was pretty sink or swim all things considered. Currently, the sun was getting high enough in the sky for him to call upon the mighty power of one of his hard-earned jutsu. He raised his hands and calmly gestured. There were a great number of meanings and nuances to the various handseals, much of which he never really got around to figuring out beyond the vaguest understanding.

It was simpler just to remember the specific combinations in order for the specific technique he wanted to utilize. Mari looked at him curiously as he started, before her face grew amused as she recognized the handseals he was performing.

"Wind Release: Convection Air." Like all magic spells, ninja-magic was dramatically easier to do if you were willing to call out the name associated with the spell. Again, he didn't know precisely why, but it worked consistently enough that he wasn't going to question it. His chakra reached out into the air around him, and prodded it into a gently-swirling bubble-shield around him. A convection-current that served to bring hot air away from him and bring a cool, refreshing breeze towards him.

The way it was shaped likewise served to help protect against light debris and airborne toxins, such as sand and bad smells. It took about as much effort to maintain as breathing in a slightly forceful way did.

"Heh! It didn't get too hot for you already, huh Mr. Jonin?" Mari asked with a little grin and hand raised to half-conceal it.

"It's not even noon yet."

"A wise man doesn't need to see the fire before he gets out of the burning house, only the smoke." Ryoma raised his hands and posed like a Sage-statue, speaking the aphorism with a theatrically wizened tone.

"Pweh- You're just afraid of a little heat, I think!" Mari teashed.

"It's fall yanno? It's not going to be that hot, even in the middle of the day!"

"If it's hot enough to fry an egg, it's hot enough to fry my mind." He grumbled, reaching up to poke at his temple.

"That's my most important part, yanno? I need it more than you do." She blinked, processing that statement and proving his point, before a light-hearted anger came over her face.

"Hey, hey now mister! What are you trying to imply here, huh?"

"You'd be able to figure it out, if you weren't letting your head cook." He took a preparatory sip of his own canteen, cool delicious water inside, before sealing it away again.

"I'm not letting my head cook! I'm just not a baby like the puppeteer next to me!"

"Oop, do you hear that?" He interrupted suddenly, raising a hand up to his ear and looking off to the distance. She froze at once, immediately throwing her gaze in the same direction and silently listening. After a few moments of this, he spoke quietly.

"It's the sound of a frying egg."

"You-!" He laughed and kept walking, ignoring her huffs and puffs besides him.

"I was really worried there for a second, you jerk!"

"I'm still worried, my partner isn't properly protected from the sun right now."

"Are all Jonin this annoying, or is it just you?"

"I would never annoy someone, that sounds downright evil and wicked of me, and I would never be either of those things."

"You're a natural at it, I'll give you that! You weirdo!"

"How am I a weirdo?!"

"You like eating rations! No one likes eating rations!"

"I like eating rations."

"Because you're a weirdo!"