Chương 40: Chapter 27

Sunagakure Ryoma, Jonin"One of the most important things you learn under a proper Jonin sensei is how to take and operate during a mission. As we can't exactly skip this, I will be taking everyone who wants to go on a proper and official mission."

It was something he came up with after finishing the other parts of the Mark Two- the shiki and seals had been commissioned and purchased already, the object-summoning technique on a scroll courtesy of the guys from Intel, and the ninjutsu corps still waiting on their ninja to get back. He had pretty much nothing else to do in terms of work, so taking a field-trip like this wasn't going to be taking him away from anything. He had discussed the matter with Toyoko, who had grumpily agreed with his assessment.

He had then proposed the idea to the Lord Kazekage, who demanded he justify the idea with a very intimidating blank look on his face. After Ryoma had laid out all his reasoning, he got a stamp of approval, told he'd be joined by another Jonin, and was given a suitable mission to take the kids on. He was starting to think that the Kazekage just liked glowering at people.

It was also in that meeting that he learned that Mari was close enough to the Lord Kazekage to hold his infant son, a baby with distinct red hair and a secret demon sealed inside of him. She had waved at him with a neat cloth-puppet arm while he was leaving. Good to see that she was experimenting, he supposed. His announcement was met with excited mutterings and cheers from the gathered mercenary-children. He raised a hand and waved it down, clearly communicating that he still had more to say.

After a few moments, the kids quieted down and allowed him to continue.

"Now, all of this has already been discussed with the Lord Kazekage, and a suitable mission has been reserved to teach you all the basics. We'll be meeting at the main gates tomorrow at o-six hundred, so prepare for that."

"Wait, sensei, who gets to go first?!" The orange haired girl, Himeko or something, asked, throwing her hand up to ask but not waiting for him to call upon her. He tilted his head.

"... Everyone? Everyone who wants to come along that is- this mission is for practice, so the money being split twenty ways doesn't really matter."

"Y-you can do that?!" the Frosty-sash girl, Hiyako, called out.

"T-take more than… four… uh." Her confidence evaporated as she continued speaking. It was easier to remember the kids with quirks, everyone else tended to fade into the background of his recognition. Judging from the agitated rumblings of the class, she was speaking a question that everyone was currently thinking. Ryoma shrugged.

"It's not typical, no, but there's no actual limit to how large any particular team can be. The standard is a four-man cell, as that has proven most consistent so far, but larger and smaller teams have been assembled before. The reason most don't organize into larger teams is because splitting the pay more than four ways means you don't usually make all that much profit by the end." He reached up to scratch the side of his neck.

"For the sake of this mission, I'll be organizing everyone into four-man groups with their own team leaders and acting as Field-Commander. The trip there and back shouldn't take longer than about ten days, so everyone who wants to come should prepare for at least twenty days in case of emergency or delays""What's the mission, sensei?" The pink haired shounen boy asked with a competitive look on his face. His name was Bazo, which was a very funny name and therefore one that was easy to remember.

"I bet it's wiping out bandits!" Himeko- Himeyo? Hime- Orange girl said excitedly.

"Assassination!" The pink-haired seducer-wannabe guessed, fists shaking up and down as she pumped herself up. Her name, Mao, was easy to remember because she had little cat accessories on at all times.

"Defending a fortress?" The kid with the straight sword and sandy blond hair tried, reaching up to scratch the bridge of his nose. June or John or something like that- a J'n type name. He let them get the guesses out of their system, reaching into his vest to pull out the appropriate mission-scroll and unraveling it on top of the desk. They continued to ramble for a few moments before realizing that he wasn't going to talk until after they had stopped, and quieting down in short order. Ryoma nodded.

"Our mission will be grocery shopping." The staggered reactions were pretty amusing to watch. He chuckled at their disappointment before reaching forwards to tap the scroll.

"We will be traveling to the Land of Rivers with a large sum of money, once we have arrived we will go to a number of long term business partners and buy rice, once we have the rice we will come back to Suna and hand it off to the Logistics Division." He looked up.

"This is a C-rank mission that will pay one hundred thousand ryo in total, I will be forfeiting my share, so divided about twenty ways means about five thousand ryo per person." Actually there were more like twenty five kids here now, counting again. He was being paid a D-Rank mission for every teaching session he held, so it wasn't like he was losing too much here. As expected though, the kids heard 'one hundred thousand' cut down into 'five thousand' for each of them and started complaining.

"Five-thousand?!"

"That's so little!"

"We might as well not even show up!" He raised a hand, cutting them off again.

"Like I said- people don't normally organize into such large teams for a reason." He lowered his hand slowly as he continued.

"This is a relatively low-risk mission so I can demonstrate the process- the point is to teach you all how to take a mission, not to earn a lot of money. You do not have to participate if you don't think it's worth doing." They were still grumbling, so he smacked the desk to emphasize his next point.

"Just like these remedial lessons- none of you have to be here if you don't think it's worth your time. You are free to organize yourselves into teams and take missions on your own if you want." He glowered over them for a few moments longer, letting his mild annoyance get across in his gaze. Only after they had been sufficiently scowled at did he let up, leaning back slightly and relaxing his gaze.

"Now, everyone who intends to come, stand up. We'll need to organize sub-teams." About half of them stood up immediately, and a few sent their hands up instead. He pointed at blue haired serious girl, Chikako. She was consistently patient in asking questions, so she was easy to remember.

"Go ahead." She dropped her hand.

"What if one is uncertain about if they are going on this mission, sensei?"

"You have until tomorrow morning to decide." He stated bluntly.

"Six am, main gates, twenty days worth of supplies. We can organize you into teams along the way if needed, but the mission isn't waiting around for you if you have cold feet."

"I understand sensei." She replied with a firm nod, standing up and joining the others in the 'definitely going' group. That was about two-thirds of the class, about eighteen people in total. An awkward number, he was honestly hoping for an interval of four to make things easy. Ah well.

"Here's the most fun part of planning a team- theorycrafting." He called out with an amused tone, the kids blinking at the unfamiliar term. He reached into his vest again, pulling out a storage-scroll and unsealing its contents. A stack of folders appeared on his desk.

"I have your profiles here, listing off all of your strengths and weaknesses as shinobi, redacted down to 'genin' level permission by the guys in Intel. This information was collected during your academy training, so don't be surprised if there's a lot of 'poor' or 'subpar' in here- that's according to professional levels. Most of you are doing more or less fine for Genin." Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"Profiles?!" Pink-haired Bazo recoiled.

"Everyone in the village has one." Ryoma waved a hand.

"Everyone from the Kazekage to myself to the neighborhood pets- we all have one and it's a good resource for things like this. It's this kind of stuff that initial team compositions are formed and that large, multifaceted missions are planned around. All of you are genin, so all of you will have permission to see everything in these files. If it's redacted, then you don't have permission to know it yet." He picked up a folder, Azuko apparently, and lightly slapped it with the back of his other hand for emphasis.

"Today, we'll be using these to plan out team compositions, strategies, and synergies between yourselves. Two ninja of different abilities working together is usually more effective than two ninja with the same specialty trying to do the same thing." A raised hand from the green-haired girl. She never talked so he never ended up learning her name. He pointed at it.

"Sensei, what do you mean by synergies?" She asked, tilting her head with an oblivious expression.

"Hm." He scratched his neck.

"Did they not teach this kind of stuff in the academy?" He mused to himself, not remembering one way or the other. It was something he knew from the beginning, so keeping track of if it was taught to others or not was hard to recall. He shook his head.

"Well, they did teach you about elemental weaknesses, right? How water can extinguish fire and stuff like that?" A large number of nods and understanding expressions. He nodded and kept going.

"Well the same thing applies in reverse. You can use one elemental technique for the sake of empowering a technique of a different element."

"Huah! Really?!"

"That's like- super cute!"

"Hn… I see…" Ryoma supposed it was new information for these kids, but he wasn't sure why they were getting so excited about it. He hadn't even said anything except 'this is a thing, yo' yet. He gave them a second before continuing.

"The most common example is Fire and Wind- Fire Chakra tends to devour and empower itself using Wind Chakra. This means it's usually a bad idea to defend against Fire ninjutsu using a Wind ninjutsu, but it also means that if your ally shoots out a Fire ninjutsu and you shoot out a Wind ninjutsu, you can create a firestorm far more powerful than either of you are capable of alone."

"Similar is true for most ninjutsu. Wind chakra can cut through Lightning chakra, scattering it. But Lightning chakra can also stiffen a target up, helping Wind cut through it. Each of the elements facilitates the power of the other elements in their own ways, no two do it the same way." He shrugged.

"I'm not a ninjutsu expert by any means, so you'd have to go to a professional to get anything more than a surface level explanation here, but it's something I regularly take advantage of in my own battles."

"Hmp! A cheap way for weaker ninja to seem strong!" The bold declaration came from the black-haired girl- Ryoma glanced down at the file in his hands again- Azuko.

"Even a thousand beetles can't overcome a Dragon, sensei!" Good on her for not being malicious when it came to her arrogant declarations, he supposed.

"The number one killer of legendary ninja throughout history is larger numbers of vastly weaker ninja." He pointed out dryly, making the girl flinch back with a scandalized look. He raised his hand and started counting on his fingers for emphasis.

"The Second Hokage? Died to Kinkaku Force. The Third Raikage? Died to allegedly ten-thousand ninja. The entire Uzumaki Clan? A strike-force coalition of no less than three Great Ninja Villages." He dropped his hand.

"If you look through the history books, this is a trend that goes back to the very beginning. Would anyone like to guess the reason?" There was silence for a few long moments as the kids considered that.

"... They- they get overwhelmed by massed jutsu?"

'Frosty Sash' Hiyako tried nervously.

"They can't dodge everything, I guess?" Poncho-boy 'Soma' crossed his arms over his chest and scowled.

"They get tired kicking so much ass?" Pink-haired Bazo shrugged. Ryoma pointed at him.

"You're not actually far off."

"Wait, really?" Bazo sounded surprised that he got an answer right. Ryoma nodded and explained.

"Fundamentally, high level combat is ruled by chakra capacity." Already looks of understanding started to form on faces.

"Chakra is the lifeblood of any ninja, any samurai, any monk or priest or shaman or- anyone. Chakra is what we used to move quickly, to avoid harm, to defeat our enemies, to sense danger. The moment you run out of chakra, even discounting the effects of chakra exhaustion, you are no longer capable of using it to fight and defend yourself."

"High level ninja can be killed by a large number of low level ninja, even sufficient numbers of normal soldiers, because no one alive has unlimited chakra. Even the mightiest Kage will eventually run out of chakra and thereby become incredibly vulnerable." Edo Tensei, which summoned zombies with unlimited chakra, was a statistical outlier and thus not included in this subset.

"Does this mean that the legendary ninja are not legendary ninja? That they are weaker than massed numbers of normal or average ninja? No. That would be silly to claim. They are still vastly more powerful than your run of the mill Chunin with a katana and a dream. But a Chunin with a katana can still execute a legend drained of chakra."

"You will eventually run out of chakra, and once you do, you're probably dead."

"This is where your strongest asset as a ninja comes in- your judgement." He pointed at all of them for emphasis again.

"Your ability to maximize the effectiveness of your abilities, your ability to work with people for most-effective synergy, your ability to look at an opponent or situation and determine if you can afford what it takes to defeat them, and retreating if you can't. This isn't a skill anyone can teach you, it's something that only practice and experience can give."

"To wrap this back around to what we were doing- I want everyone to give a self-assessment about their abilities. Their strengths and weaknesses. I will then read off your profiles as a point of comparison. Once we've gone around, we'll start the fun part of thinking up combination strategies." Ryoma glanced down at the folder again, before deciding that in profile-order was as good as any other way to handle this.

"Azuko, you're up first." He called out, opening the folder and turning to the girl in question. The black-haired, yellow-eyed girl rose and splayed a confident hand across her chest in a confident self-referential manner.

"I am Azuko! I'm talented with all shinobi arts and have learned fire ninjutsu! I have no real weaknesses." Her head was tilted back with confidence and poise. Ryoma raised a brow, glancing down at her profile. He skipped over the details that didn't matter, like her registration number and physical characteristics.

"Azuko. Physical capabilities very low. Chakra capacity low. Demonstrates basic proficiency with the Academy Three Jutsu. Demonstrates low proficiency with throwing weapons. Demonstrates very low proficiency with hand-to-hand and close combat weapons. Demonstrates very low proficiency with Fire ninjutsu." The other remedial students, proving that they were still kids, showed no mercy in laughing at their peer.

The look of outrage and crushing despair on her face was both amusing and pitiable, so he added a line to comfort her.

"This is pretty good for a fresh graduate." That was enough to get everyone else nervous too. Ryoma chuckled and moved to the next profile.

"Bazo. You're up next." He had been one of the loudest laughing a moment earlier. Currently, he was sweating.