Chương 61: Chapter 12

Tea Capital Ryoma, Recently Promoted Ninja The chief samurai-guard of the Tea Daimyo's estate was nice enough to take them in for the night, and by 'them', the nobles and other samurai. The ninja were allowed to stay in the outer courtyard under watch by the various guards walking around the perimeter walls. Honestly not a bad call, trusting ninja in your palace was probably a bad idea.

As the nobles were fairly insistent on getting a good night's rest, and the ninja still needed to have a talk about what was going on, it was easier just to let this happen. Ryoma was pretty sure almost everyone present had at least one way to monitor their client while they were inside. He had his sand clone from earlier subject to a transformation, disguising itself as various things until it had snuck its way into her room and stationed itself as a bit of furniture.

Sand clones had only a limited ability to act, but 'stand still and watch the client' was within their ability. He'd keep an eye on it and move to direct command if need be. He wouldn't be surprised if literally everyone here did something similar. The Konoha team was allowed to send Chairomaru with Gozen, being a dog was more trustworthy than being a ninja apparently, for example. That left a good sixteen ninja in a courtyard, all glaring at each other suspiciously as the night dragged on.

It looked like there was one or two ninja from every notable ninja village save… Kumo, by the looks of it. Tensions were high from the recent war they had just gotten out of, and the recent attack that just occured, so unless someone started talking it was likely everyone would just start killing each other. He sighed, raising a hand to rub the back of his neck before stepping forwards into the rough 'circle' that had formed between the gathered ninja.

"Anyone have a big rock?" He called out, casting his gaze wide.

"Need some earth to make sand- we'll need a map to discuss details." There was a period of suspicious looks and grumbles before the Iwa-nin, blond and chewing on a toothpick, stepped forwards while pulling out a storage scroll.

"Yeah I got one, step back sandass." Ryoma took a dutiful step back as the Iwa-nin unleashed the contents of his scroll, which turned out to be a particularly large boulder. Ryoma sniffed appreciatively, briefly checking to see if his illusion-mask was still on or not, before the Iwa-nin stood up and stepped back again.

"That big enough, sandass?"

"Yeah, it should be good. Thank ya, Rockass." He nodded, raising his hands to perform the basic 'hiding like a mole' seals and wreathing his body in sand-manufacturing chakra. Then, he jumped up and landed on top of the rock, feet first. Gradually, the rock was ground down into fine particulate, lowering him as it was, until finally he was standing in a fresh bed of sand. Stepping out and ending the technique, he summoned a handful of chakra-strings and started to push the pile of sand flat.

He called out loudly, letting his voice carry across the courtyard as he worked.

"Earliest my team noticed the attack was oh-three hundred-twenty one, with the noise of the gas canisters in the vents. Does anyone else have an earlier estimate?"

"Canisters on the west side of the apartments triggered earlier, at oh-three hundred-twenty." The Ame-nin stepped forwards with a grumble, accompanied by another Ame-nin, both of them wearing gas-masks and bits of bulky metal mechanisms.

"Gave me time to identify them before the ambient gasses forced us to evacuate the client." In the corner of the sand-layer, Ryoma raised a finger to write that information down. 0320, attack begins. Poison gas canisters in vents. Angel Dust and Laughing Gas admixture. The other ninja gradually crept a little closer by this point, around the edges of the sand in little semi-friendly groups. Ninja tended to be pretty hungry for information, and offering bits of it in turn was cheap for getting more back.

Especially as it related to an attack that wasn't classified to anyone present. Ryoma continued herding the cats, making another declaration.

"Poison was a nonlethal blend designed to sedate targets- clear hiss with known ninja presence implies that it was present merely to separate trained professionals from the unguarded or less-skilled. Any alternative theories?"

"Incompetence." Growled the red-haired ninja from Kiri, thick arms crossed over his chest. He was accompanied by another, much smaller Kiri-nin, a twitchy woman with wide eyes. Dutifully, Ryoma recorded the two potential reasons for the gas-attack being the way that it was and moved along.

"Upon exiting the apartments, the gathered ninja and samurai emerged into a cloud of fine, highly-flammable particulate. Skipping ahead a bit- the presence of the summoned moth implies that these were moth scales shed as part of a wide-scale, high damage but low impact firebomb. Designed to take out units and not structures. Do we have a tally of how many died in that attack?"

"Three, two ninja and one client." The frazzled looking Kiri-nin declared with a jumpy sort of tone in her voice.

"Others that disappeared after the attack ran off." Potential sensor or just good spatial awareness, either was possible. Ryoma added that to the growing list.

"Afterwards, the enemy revealed himself with a moth-lightshow and a large number of animated corpses under transformation techniques, my team's estimation was around one-hundred, do we have a more precise count than that?"

"One hundred and two in total, including the summon and true enemy." The frazzled Kiri-nin continued, to which he gave a little appreciative nod and recorded the information.

"The corpse-clones seemed to be no more durable than a standard clone, save the addition of a corpse afterwards. All corpses seem to have been killed via slit neck. Do we have any ID on the corpses themselves?"

"I saw a few in fancy clothes, potential nobles." Gaku chimed in at that, a little growl in his own voice.

"With that and the declared bounty on noble heads that Laughing Smoke put out, I suppose this is what he's been doing with the bodies."

"Wait- he did that?" A ninja from Kusa, a woman with a tiny yukata and large straw hat, spoke with an astonished note.

"That's- is he trying to get Hunter-Nin after him?"

"Where did you hear that, Konoha-nin?" The Tani-nin with the mask and mesh, now accompanied by another Tani-nin wearing concealing robes and holding a long pole, asked. Gaku nodded his head towards him, and Ryoma nodded in turn.

"Our clients happened to be friends, leading to a joint escort as they traveled together towards the festival. On the way we were attacked by a man calling himself 'Katsubachi' and Kuchisei Kei, a B-rank ninja from Iwa." He nodded towards the Iwa-nin, who had a deeply sour expression on his face.

"They were looking to be cashing in on the bounty with the heads of our clients- and both escaped after a brief battle. We suspect them to either be investigating Laughing Smoke or outright missing-nin, but there's not enough information to say for certain either way." He shrugged before moving on.

"According to Katsubachi, Laughing Smoke has put out a five-million per head bounty on captured nobles. His reasoning for this is unknown." There were a few low whistles at that, and a few other dismissive scoffs.

"Five-fucking-million." The red-haired Kiri-nin whistled.

"There's no way he's actually paying them." The Iwa-nin's face twisted up in a glare and scowl as he scoffed.

"No fucking way. There was a handful in this bunch- but there's not a chance he actually paid up to whatever suckers took that bait."

"Might be where the other corpses are from." One of the Yuga-nin mused, reaching up to rub his chin.

"They had seals on their foreheads. Do we know what they are?" The Ame-nin called out with a scowl.

"I didn't notice. What did they look like?" Ryoma asked, tilting his head. The Ame-nin held up a slip of paper, before casualling tossing it over. Ryoma caught it by a string and held it up close enough for inspection but far enough to get away in case it exploded. Filter, two-part storage, floodgate, long-tick release, a squiggly mess of Jutsu-Shiki that he couldn't begin to understand.

"It's chakra-storage, probably to fuel the animation of those corpse-clones if I were to guess." Ryoma sniffed, turning it around and investigating the other side of the paper for anything else.

"Implies that he probably filled these up over time and had them activated before the mission- This implies he has relatively average or at least reasonable chakra reserves." Storing chakra by itself wasn't very easy, but adding it back to your own reserves was even harder. Way simpler to just have them fuel an existing jutsu-shiki or something instead.

And if you were going to do that, unless you cared about letting other people power your jutsu-shiki, there was little point in not just making an easier specialized storage scroll. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. For most people, storing chakra only had relatively niche applications versus simply storing a jutsu outright. He said most, because some like Tsunade managed to make giga-regeneration seals with the idea and whatnot.

Even then, her big innovation there was that it passively charged itself on all the scraps of chakra she'd normally be wasting doing other things, not just chakra she loaded in there ahead of time. Also, that was something he wasn't supposed to know about. Classified information about the inner workings of a jutsu used by a rival village and all that. His own chakra seals were slightly better than this, as far as he could tell from glancing at the design.

A bit cumbersome and there were weird extraneous flourishes around the main seal. He handed it back on a string to the Ame-nin as the tactical outline continued along.

"That summon was about as big as a house, supports the 'average' theory." The Kiri-nin growled, tilting his head forwards in a nod. There were a few scattered nods and grumbles of agreement at that. Now, having an animal the size of a house on your side sounded very impressive, but summons got much bigger. They didn't usually get quite as large as the giant demon kaiju that occasionally showed up, but that cap was closer to 'hill' or 'castle' than 'house'.

A giant moth the size of someone's house was something most Jonin should be able to pull off, presuming they had the contract signed and ordered.

"He tried attacking my puppet twice, once with a corpse-clone sword and once with a giant shuriken. Both bounced off, and he took the opportunity to flee when I countered." Ryoma shook his head.

"Not sure how dangerous the actual clones were, they were mostly wiped out in my initial counterattack."

"They weren't dangerous- it was like being swarmed by a bunch of talented academy brats." The Kiri-nin shook his head with a dismissive scoff.

"Maybe that would work on amateurs, but not anyone that matters." There were a few glares sent his way by several of the other ninja, mostly those that were injured.

"After the battle, it was suggested by the few Samurai with us that a strike force could be assembled to chase him down and eliminate the threat of another attack." Ryoma began, letting his tone indicate his carefully neutral stance on the matter. There was a great deal of derisive scoffs and mocking laughs at that.

"Being transparent here, I'm inclined against the idea myself for obvious reason-""And what might those be?" Came a voice calling out from the end of the courtyard. The gathered ninja turned heads and cast looks towards the voice, before eyes widened and nearly everyone present dropped into bows of various levels of politeness. An older man with rounded cheeks, long earlobes, short hair, and a well-groomed mustache.

He was wearing evening-robes, with strained eyes indicating that he wasn't used to being awake at this hour, and walking with a warming mantle around his shoulders. His inner-robes were a dusky orange, and his outer robes were a pale purple. Most importantly, he wore a very fancy hat that marked him as Daimyo, and was flanked by two very serious looking men with katana's on their belts.

He walked over to them at a relaxed pace, neither hurried nor sedate, wooden sandals making little clopping noises on the paved stone. One hand emerged from his robes, palm facing up as he gestured at them.

"You may rise, all of you- it's hardly the hour for ceremony." They relaxed their various bows as the Daimyo squinted in his direction.

"Now, my question?" His voice was relatively polite, but also insistent in its own calm manner. Ryoma nodded.

"Most of, if not all of us, were hired to protect our clients specifically, Lord Daimyo. Laughing Smoke attacked us and then fled, and while chasing him down might eliminate a future threat to our clients, it would also require leaving their sides for an extended period of time." He shook his head.

"Our priority is protecting the clients, not hunting down Laughing Smoke. An operation such as that would require both client permission and renegotiation of payment- it's an entirely separate mission than the one we're here for."

"If he's truly dedicated to attacking us, then he'll attack again and we'll likely be better prepared when such an attack comes." He raised one hand to indicate it as a possibility, then raised the other hand.

"But if he never attacks again, that will also further our mission of 'guarding the client'."

"Ah, I see." The Tea Daimyo nodded, looking down at the field of sand covering his inner courtyard and raising a refined eyebrow, before shaking his head.

"Your duty is to protect, to eliminate the enemy requires both leave from your clients and a new contract to hunt him down, is that it?"

"That is correct, Lord Daimyo." Gaku answered with a nod of his head, carefully keeping the growl from his voice.

"If you'd like to hire us for such a mission, we'd have to speak to our clients first about adjusting their protection detail. If they're agreeable to it, I imagine assembling a squad of hunters from amongst the gathered ninja would be a simple matter."

"Sans the fu- uh- sans the war, that is." The Iwa-nin spoke up with an irritated look towards the Konoha ninja, almost cursing before glancing towards the Daimyo and thinking otherwise.

"I'm not exactly quick to be working with any of you Konoha-nin." The Tea Daimyo tilted his head slightly, before glancing towards his samurai.

"... A war?" He questioned, met with little shrugs.

"If I may, Lord Daimyo?" Ryoma spoke up at that, catching the Daimyo's attention again. The Tea Daimyo nodded towards him, letting Ryoma start to explain.

"Every fifteen to twenty years a 'Ninja War' breaks out among the Hidden Villages." He shrugs before continuing.

"They aren't very big wars, the last one only had ten-thousand dead by most recent estimates, but it keeps things tense between the various villages."

"Not very big wars?!" The Kusa-nin called out at that, an offended tone in her voice. Ryoma raised his hands in an apologetic manner.

"Compared to the War of Three Dragons?" The Ame-nin growled, catching the Kusa-nin short.

"That saw thirty-million dead by the conclusion? The Third Great Ninja War had maybe ten-thousand dead, most of whom were ninja. The Five Great Nations probably didn't even notice that it was going on." There was a long tense quiet after that, with pinched expressions and hot tempers kept in check by professionalism and the presence of a Daimyo. The Tea Daimyo considered this, casting his gaze around before nodding slowly.

"One million for each participant." He declared, making all the ninja stop short, breaths catching in throats and stares fixed on the very, very wealthy client.

"Assuming your clients are agreeable, they will be protected by my Samurai and within my estate while this work is being done. One million ryo to every ninja who participates in the capture or death of the rogue bandit Laughing Smoke." One million was generally considered the cut-off point for what S-rank missions would pay out. There were sixteen ninja present. That was sixteen million ryo. Daimyos were one of the few clients who could afford something like this.

"We'll have to speak to our clients first." Ryoma declared, focusing sharply on the matter at hand with furrowed brows. His words dragged the group-focus back from the visions of wealth and on their situation once more.

"Our pride as ninja demands it, I'm sure you understand, Lord Daimyo."

"Naturally." The Tea Daimyo nodded.

"I would not ask any of you to simply abandon a righteous duty such as this. But his crimes cannot go unpunished. If none present are given lease from your wards to perform this task, I will simply ask others." He tilted his head forwards.

"I will, however, ask that you all share whatever information you gathered about Laughing Smoke with my commanders." Ryoma glanced around to the other ninja present, cautious nods and affirmative noises coming from gathered lips. The Tea Daimyo nodded at this, before letting out a tremendous yawn and sleepy blinks.

"Now- with that addressed, I shall leave commander Tenchi with you and return to my rest." He nodded at the Samurai next to him, a tall, broad man with a long mustache. The commander Tenchi stepped forwards, doing the smallest bow that was still polite to them, and then bowing much deeper to the Tea Daimyo. The Tea Daimyo turned, escorted by the other samurai, and made his way back into the inner complex.

Ryoma saw no one quick to start sumarizing information, sighed internally as Mari nudged him playfully, and started from the beginning again.

"Commander Tenchi, the following information has been gathered pertaining to the attack-"