WARNING: THERE ARE HEAVY STORY SPOILERS HERE. IF YOU WANT TO READ THE QUEST, DO NOT READ THIS CHAPTER.
Context: "Ninja Ninja Tactics" is Quest-style story posted by Viva01 on Questionable Questing, a NSFW story forum. My handle on that forum is Stormfury. Quests work through having readers post and vote on different presented decisions that effect the story, such as through decisions a character chooses, or loot that is found. There is also often a randomness factor using dice rolls to determine the results of character actions/fights/etc. NNT is a Quest that is based on an OC who is Kakashi's twin brother, and follows his escapades as he is growing up. This has greatly changed the timeline of Naruto, and is an extremely long read that is still on-going. Omake in Quests usually earn "points" that can be turned in to positively effect dice rolls for a single chapter, and I have written several for this Quest.
The chapter follows one of the many OCs in the quest, due to it starting when Kakashi/Karasu (the OC twin) were born, and only currently in story is around age 12-13ish... 743 threadmarked updates from the author later. Also, being a Quest on a NSFW forum means a lot of... "relationship building" occurs, and most girls Karasu's age are into him. Shibue is an OC Aburame who is by far Best Girl in the quest, and the Chuunin lead of Team Shibue, originally her genin cell, who is one of the girls closest to Karasu. Kenichi and Mara are cousins who are OC Kuramas, Nemo is an OC Branch Hyuuga, Kaiya and Yuri are twin OC Uchihas, and Doomsday is Shibue's pet Chakra spider.
This chapter is the attempted rewrite of the last posted chapter, to adapt it to the actual events that occurred, not the events the Author told me to be concerned with when I wrote the last chapter. There are several parts that are cut and paste from the last omake, because of that. This was never actually posted in the thread, due to the author being bizarrely insulting, hostile, and rude, as I followed the steps he asked me to when submitting the Omake to him. It also marks the last Omake I wrote for the quest, because of that. THERE ARE HEAVY STORY SPOILERS HERE. IF YOU WANT TO READ THE QUEST, DO NOT READ THIS CHAPTER.
~The Team Who Loved Me~
Kenichi had a lot of trouble putting into words how he was feeling right now. Drained was obvious. He was exhausted and low on chakra, and had been through a nightmare of a day.
Angry didn't quite feel right. Kenichi was familiar with being mad. Lots of things annoyed him, and he wasn't the type to not let people know when they were pissing him off. Nothing wrong with getting a little upset over being snubbed by a pretty girl, or insulted by some jerk, or anything like that. But he couldn't quite remember a time that he had been so incredibly furious that he wasn't sure he was even angry - it's like he had rolled all the way past the far edge of anger, and had come back around again to being calm.
As he marveled at how calm he was despite being so angry, so angry that all he wanted to do was find some Steel release user and just dig gouges through the steel skin they were so proud of, and was that his chakra that was starting to warp out around him digging holes in the ground -
'Calm. Relax.' Slowly his chakra pulled back in, and reality wavered, and the holes filled back in as if nothing had touched them.
'Think happy thoughts'. For Kenichi, like most Konoha ninja, a lot of his happy thoughts revolved around his team. His team that had just lost -
No. He would think about the good times. This rotation had started out so well...
~Flashback~
'Even when life is boring,' Kenichi thought, 'it's still good to be me.' Not everyone had a setup like his, a team like his. 'And that,' he thought with relish, 'must suck for them.'
Life had resumed on the northern Iwa front quietly, far less intense than they had left it. After the last rotation ended with most of the more dangerous or annoying opposition in prison, his front had slowed down dramatically. Without the Steel or Explosion users, the only really dangerous forces they had to deal with were based on their rank, and not any innate bloodline gift. Sure, he lost out on seeing those cute Ty sisters, but that was a price he was willing to pay for not also seeing the Steel users. 'They were a double win: they were a damn sight better looking than most of the Iwa forces, AND they riled up all my girls something fierce!'
Kenichi sighed at that thought. They were his girls, but not his girls like that, no matter what he might wish. Whatever he might... imagine... in the privacy of his own tent, he wasn't so delusional to actually believe they were his in that sense, too. He had spent a large amount of time with the girls of his team, and he cared about them. Mara was nothing new for that - he had always spent a lot of time with her, but being on the front meant that he would be spending more time with all of his girls. Although he definitely was around them a lot off the warfront, while there, he didn't have to come up with excuses to hang out with Shibue, Nemo, and Kaiya, too.
~Flashback End~
'Calm. Calm. Think happy thoughts about the Team, and not about murdering every fucking Iwa ninja for fucking -'
He pulled back in his chakra. Reality stopped warping, and the blood that was slowly oozing out of the ground around him faded away, as if it was never there.
Kenichi hadn't always been happy that Konoha was such a team-centric Village, because most of the people he knew he thought were losers, but that had changed after he joined the Team. Maybe in some other Village you would be assigned based on the mission to different groups, but in Konoha, you stayed with Your Team. When he went back to the front, he wasn't Kenichi Kurama, unattached chuunin - he was Kenichi Kurama, chuunin member of Team Shibue.
He remembered the day that had first happened. It had been a good day. That was a safe thing to think about right now. It started off with an argument, too - no matter that he was the oldest, it wasn't Team Kenichi. Shibue was in charge, and she had no qualms enforcing it.
~Flashback~
"Mara, Kenichi, it is good you are on time to our first team meeting. Why? Because there are formations, signals, and important strategies we will go over, now that you are assigned to Team Shibue." While the base for the front was not a training location, space could be found for team discussions, and coordinating a new team before their first mission out in the field was important to ensuring that said new team survived contact with the enemy.
"Woah, I don't remember being assigned to any 'Team Shibue' - base command just said we're assigned to work with you. I think 'Team Kenichi' has a nice ring to it." While he didn't actually want command, as that would probably require paperwork or the like, he did have pride, and if he was going to be on a team with four younger girls, he was the natural choice for lead, right?
Most of his academy class cohort had deferred to him if he decided to throw his weight around, due to his older age, bigger size, and more trained skill, but there were always exceptions, and the group that had clustered around the Hatake twins were all generally the exception. But Shibue and Nemo were quiet girls, and those types were usually shy, right? Kaiya definitely wasn't shy, but she wasn't the one asserting leadership here, so who cared? And Mara always had his back, didn't she?
'Huh, that's an ominous smile. Why are Kaiya and Nemo backing away from Shibue? Wait, why is Mara also backing away? How did Shibue's sunglasses just gleam like that?'
"Hmm. It seems to me that the first teamwork lesson you need is on the Team Shibue Pecking Order."
When Kaiya and Nemo outright fled, grabbing Mara along the way, Kenichi realized that maybe he was in way over his head.
'So many bugs. So many bugs. So many bugs. Why does she have so many? Why does she have so many different ones?'
Unfortunately for him, he was right.
~Flashback End~
Hands touched his shoulders, and he nearly flinched. He started to force his chakra down again, but this time it had been real - someone had knelt down next to him. He didn't look up, but the hands felt familiar. Female. Who could it be? Shibue and Nemo were both inside the tent he was sitting outside of, guarding, the tent that he had also put Mara inside. No one had asked him to guard it, but no one had also told him not to make sure that no one went in and bothered his Team and took more away from -
'Relax.'
He pulled back in his chakra, and the hands disappeared. It hadn't been real. The girls were still in the tent, Mara and Shibue and Nemo but not Kaiya -
'Just think of something nice, think of the girls.'
Working with Shibue was... interesting... for Kenichi. He wasn't ever really interested in her, despite the fact he could acknowledge she was cute. She had a signature haircut that made her stand out among the other girls of his cohort but that didn't help him feel attraction. He didn't feel the remotest shame in admitting that it was because of the bugs.
He wasn't being discriminatory or anything - he didn't hate or whatever the Aburame. It just freaked him out. He had been on some missions with other Aburame, and watching Kikaichu crawl out of them was pretty freaky and gross. 'Remember, Kenichi, vore is a trash fetish. All of my porn books agree!'
Even though Shibue wasn't as focused on Kikaichu as a lot of field Aburame he had dealt with were, he knew she did have a hive of them, or whatever they called it, inside her. And not inside her in a sexy way, but inside her. While he and Doomsday were buds, if Doomsday thought of Shibue as his mom, it wasn't Kenichi he thought of as his dad.
Doomsday also had Opinions about who could do what with his 'mom'. And Kenichi didn't care what other people might think of him if they knew - well alright, maybe he did, shut up - he lost enough arguments with Doomy as is. He didn't want to start another one he knew he would lose.
~ Flashback~
'Hehe, I hope they bring that guy with the mud bomb jutsu every time they find us; that was by far the best fight I've ever seen!' Sure, they may have gotten lost in one of the canyons, and were probably going to be pretty late for their expected return from the mission, but this day was making it totally worth it. Not only did they stumble into the Ty sisters again, which was always a plus for him, but the Ty girls had a tag along with them this time. While Kenichi had been fighting him, the dude had used some sort of mud explosion jutsu. Kenichi dodged it, because he's awesome like that, but it still not only shot mud everywhere when it landed, it did so partly by converting a lot of the ground into a mud pit, too.
And maybe, possibly, accidentally, Kenichi should have been paying more attention to his surroundings, because behind him, where the mud bomb hit, was basically exactly where all the other girls were fighting. 'It's not my fault! That guy was the one who shot it, and it's not like the Ty girls weren't in that area, too! Then again, maybe that was his goal. Smart man, then.'
Long story short, the fight didn't end immediately just because all the girls were covered in mud, but both Kenichi and the Mud Bomber's did. An unspoken Agreement Between Men had them both jump back, and pay attention to what was important in life, rather than fighting some dumb death battle. It only lasted another minute or so, but what a glorious minute it was. And it turned out that even though he didn't shoot the mud ball, being caught not even fighting the guy who did and just watching the girls fight meant it was your fault, too.
And now, on their way back, they had found a stream the girls could clean off in, and he wasn't some kind of fool who didn't take opportunities that clearly some god up there was gifting him! Sure, Mara might see through his genjutsu if he wasn't careful, but if he snuck over to the side and hid in the rocks, they probably wouldn't catch him immediately, especially as he had set up a clone that might trick Nemo for a bit if she wasn't actively tracking him with her eyes.
As "Operation: Earning the Punishment He Was Going To Get Anyway" was put into action… an immediate wrinkle occurred. He had forgotten about Doomsday, until he heard a loud hissing. Standing in front of him was the overprotective mama's-spider.
"Come on, Doomy, you're gonna give me away!" Kenichi whispered urgently to the spider, trying to shush him. Kenichi liked the spider, usually. He was basically their team Mascot, and watching him terrify other people while Shibue alternated between treating him like a puppy and throwing him at people that annoyed her was hilarious. But now he was breaking the bro-code! They were the only guys on the team, Doomsday should have his back here! "Don't you shake your head no at me! Cockblocking is a sin!"
Pleading was not working - the spider stood firm. Kenichi tried to edge his way around Doomsday, but not only did Doomsday sidestep to stay in front of him, the hissing had started to turn into growling. Kenichi quickly backed up a step, to make the growling stop and quiet down the spider, but he tried one last plea. "Just this once, Doom! Come on, help a brother out!"
Doomsday took one leg, and dragged it across the ground in the dirt. He created a line in the sand, all while staring Kenichi dead in the eye, as if to say "you shall not pass".
Kenichi raised a finger as he considered arguing the point, before dropping it. He realized that discretion was the better part of valor, and decided that Doomsday had won this round.
~Flashback end~
They never did run into the Mud Bomber again, unfortunately.
So yeah, Shibue was always a non-starter for him, but she wasn't the only girl there! He liked both of them, despite them openly not respecting him as much as he felt he deserved. He knew they cared, though.
He had pierced Nemo's tsun-tsun exterior a time or two, but her dere-dere core did not belong to him. He listened to the girls gossip regularly, and he knew that she was already openly dating Karasu, 'or whatever you called joining a harem. Lucky bastard!'
Kaiya was the better option to him, anyway - the fact that she didn't seem anywhere near as attached to the Lucky Bastard notwithstanding, their personalities just meshed a lot better. And she was hot. 'I wonder how pissed off she would get if I start making puns about her being as hot as her jutsu?' Masochism, he hoped, was not a trash fetish.
And, speaking of, Mara was there too. While she was nice, Kenichi tried not to respond too much or be too nice back to her in public. Not because he didn't like her, or anything - he did! She was a nice girl and definitely pretty. If maybe he hadn't spent as much time around all the other girls as he had, or if he was honest, read as much of the extremely varied porn he had found and acquired while hunting through that bookstore to find out what all those girls were giggling over and hiding whenever he tried to see it, he would have no problem angling to get the two of them together through the clan. But maybe it was not to be; exploring all sorts of ideas about how to have a good time had combined with actually spending time with girls who all acted very differently from each other, an experience that changed him. This had helped him learn about himself and what he actually liked, more than he probably would have been able to admit to himself otherwise.
His clan, if they thought he and his cousin would be a good match, would get… pushy. 'I love being me, but I wish my clan wasn't one of those clans'. The Kurama blood-limit could be pretty scary, but something about marrying your cousins, after he really thought about it, turned him off quite a bit. Incest, it seemed, was not a fetish for him. 'Also, enjoying hot girls smacking you around does not make you a weirdo, and I wouldn't have realized that about myself if it wasn't for the Team.' Kenichi snorted at that - he had no idea how Shibue or Nemo would react if they figured out half the stupid stuff he said that caused them to smack or otherwise "punish" him was deliberate to get that reaction, but it would probably be hilarious.
His Team was not one he would have chosen, back when he was assigned to it, but he could easily admit that they were the best thing that had happened to him. And, with the quieter front of late, maybe he would try to hint at Kaiya soon, maybe see if she was interested if he put on his serious face? They were young, and he had time - no need to rush and ruin anything, but he shouldn't let an opportunity pass him by, right?
'The Kurama bloodline limit IS really scary,' Kenichi mused to himself. Maybe it was how angry he was, or how tired he was, but right now he found he didn't mind all that much about maybe possibly developing split personalities or going crazy, if he could make every Steel user know what it felt like to fall into a dark pit and disappear forever -
Kenichi once more pulled back in his chakra, and the pit next to him closed back up. It was another couple of hours til dawn, and he would stay awake and guard his team while they got the rest they needed. At least good ol' Doomy had snuck out to help stand guard with him. He was a bro like that.
Mara didn't know what to do.
She wasn't sure if she was in shock, because she had already been to the medics for her shoulder and they had healed her and wouldn't they have fixed that too, but she felt like she was caught in a dead loop of 'I don't know what to do' thoughts.
She felt lost. Useless. She had been injured early and became a liability. Her Team saved her. Over and over as they ran.
When they made it to Gamma site and visited the medics, Kenichi had stayed behind with her when he, Shibue, and Nemo had been ordered to find a place to sleep. Kenichi had acted like he didn't hear the order and sat with her until the medic finally finished with her, too. And then he walked her into the tent where Shibue and Nemo huddled miserably, gently pushed her inside, and then closed the flap behind her.
Mara wasn't a chakra sensor or anything, but she was fairly certain that if she opened the flap, all she would see would be Kenichi's back.
This wasn't normal for him at all. It worried her. She may not like him like that, the way her clan might want her too, might have been hinting that maybe she should, but she did care about him. Sure he was arrogant, and made bad jokes, and was lazy, and…
She wiped her eyes, filled with tears. He also beat up a bunch of kids who tried to bully her a few times back in the academy, though she didn't think he knew that she knew. Sadly this had persisted and caused a few other children to be scared off as he 'tested' them when they tried to sit with or near her.
He also distracted the clan elders away from her a lot by making a scene and being rude or insulting, whenever they started talking about marriages and the future. Once or twice would be a coincidence, but he had caused distractions when she tried to sneak out to visit her friends or Karasu a few too many times for it to be chance. Her friends...
She looked over at Shibue and Nemo clutching each other, and wished she could build up the motivation to join them, or maybe just to move from where Kenichi had placed her before leaving the tent. He probably hadn't intended for her to sit on her knees where he had left her, but she just couldn't summon up the will to move.
She had known people who had died in the war. Everyone did, it goes with the territory. She had killed, too. Killing with genjutsu wasn't necessarily the most pleasant way to kill people, either - she was almost happy that she hadn't activated her bloodline's gift, hadn't actually killed someone using their own imagination. She had messed with their heads and killed them while distracted, but that felt less… staining… then making an opponent die by thinking they had been stabbed.
But this felt different. Although she had known others that had died, they hadn't been her friend. They had just been names and faces that she could connect to each other, and usually little to nothing about them as a person. Though others of her age that she did know had been at the front, there weren't that many left. And the reduced numbers of kids wasn't because they were dying off - its because they were being pulled away from the front to go back to the village.
Mara wiped her eyes. Most of the people dying were people she didn't know, until now.
Staring at Shibue and Nemo, she felt there was a gap between them and her, a gap that she couldn't cross, a gap that looked like Kaiya. A gap between the genin cell Team Shibue, and the Chuunin cell Team Shibue.
She didn't know what to say. She didn't know what to do.
She loved her Team. She was friends with them before being teamed up with them. For years, ever since Karasu had approached and befriended her in the academy, stopping Kenichi from being a jerk and letting her know that yes, other people wanted to be her friends and that her cousin had just been scaring them off because he thought it was funny or something, she had loved just the idea of having friends.
Mara wiped her eyes.
If she loved the idea of having friends, she loved her friends even more.
It's why she didn't mind the idea of maybe possibly sharing a guy with the others. Part of it was the guy - she may not be sure if she loved Karasu yet, but she could definitely see herself spending the rest of her life with him in the future. The other part of that thought, though, was "the others". If she didn't love her friends, how could she even consider being involved with them in a relationship like that?
People told her she was a "bright happy girl". She liked being thought of that way, and she liked being that way. Being happy was so much better than being sad, or being bitchy. She remembered what it was like when the students who sat with her in the academy kept on asking to be moved away - she thought it was because of her. She thought people hated her. How can anyone be happy when all their peers hate them? But when Karasu changed that, and she realized that no one hated her… why wouldn't she be happy? What did she have to be sad about? She knew what life could be like, a life without friends, but she had friends. That was something worth being happy about, and nothing was going to make her sad for long when she had her friends with her.
Mara wiped her eyes.
Kaiya was her friend.
She lost a friend.
She still had friends.
But there was one less.
Did that make her less happy? Was happiness in units, and now she was 'less happy'? Would she need to replace Kaiya to be as happy as she used to be? How could she ever replace her?
Mara wiped her eyes.
She focused on Shibue and Nemo again. She hadn't stopped looking in their direction, hadn't moved at all, not since she had entered the tent and sat down, but she hadn't really 'seen them' while she was thinking. Although maybe part of that was the tears that just wouldn't go away?
Being put on Team Shibue was just… it was so nice. It felt, she was sort of embarrassed to admit, kind of like a ninja version of playing house. Her team was made up of her closest friends, friends she was considering sharing a man with. The other person on the team, Kenichi, was basically her annoying older brother, teasing her and goofing off, but always watching her back. She saw her team as her family, and their interactions as what she wanted her future to be like. It helped that they were as committed as she was - Nemo and Shibue had even already confessed! She was kind of jealous they had already done so, but at the same time, happy they had. Happy for them, and happy that she didn't have to be the brave one and go first. She knew it was possible, that Akami and Satchi weren't teasing or anything, and if she decided that she wanted in, she knew there was a place for her.
But now they were one less. The household was down one resident. The family had lost a member.
Mara wiped her eyes.
The Kaiya-sized gap between them was still there.
She loved her team. They were all hurting. Even Kenichi. He liked to act like he didn't care, out of some kind of 'male coolness' thing, but he did. She knew before this that he did, but even if she didn't, the way he was acting now would certainly prove it. He was sitting outside, doing what he felt was his part to keep the rest of his team safe, even if they weren't in danger at the moment. Even if they were one less.
Mara wiped her eyes again.
She couldn't take it anymore. She was too emotionally drained. Watching Kaiya fall, then be saved, then fall again, all with a broken shoulder, and she couldn't help anyone. She was done. Here was her Team. Here were her friends. Here were her sisters. There was a Kaiya-shaped hole, and she didn't think she could fill that. She didn't want to fill that. But she wasn't trying to.
She finally moved, crawled over to Shibue, curled up next to her, and passed out.
The sun rose. Shibue opened her eyes. She was between Nemo and Mara, both of them clinging to her, both still asleep. She did not want to wake them, didn't want to wake up herself, either. But she was Team Leader, and she had responsibilities. She sidled out from between them and slid off the mat, and watched Nemo's arm come back down on Mara, who she began to clutch and cuddle for comfort where Shibue had been moments ago.
The world was silent in a way that terrified Shibue. She had no swarm. It was like she had lost a sense. Is this what it's like to be blind, to be deaf? To go from knowing the world around you to suddenly not? She would recover, but the sheer number of casualties of her lost swarm hurt her in a way that she had never wanted to feel. She still had some queens but it would take them a long time to regenerate anything approaching a combat ready swarm.
She was surprised when she opened the tent flap and saw Kenichi's back. His shoulders were slumped, and he was absently petting Doomsday. She put her hands on his shoulder to step around him, as he was blocking the tent entrance, which he strangely did not react to, and exited.
She appreciated what he was clearly doing. It was probably unnecessary, but it was a sign of how he cared about them, about the Team, that he was still out here guarding the tent that the Team had been inside.
Oddly enough, despite him clearly being awake and aware and on guard and having to know she was there, he didn't react to her all until she spoke. He violently flinched when she did, as if he was surprised at her presence.
"Thank you for keeping watch. Go inside and rest. Or I will -"
She cut herself off.
Kenichi had looked like he was going to argue with her, and without thinking she began to threaten punishment, as she always did, as if this was a normal day. And it was her turn to flinch at the realization that she couldn't even if she wanted to - with no swarm, how would she be able to enact any? Moreover, it's not like he was slacking off here - he was working too hard, doing the opposite. Shibue noted the way Kenichi's eyes hardened after she abruptly cut herself off and flinched, as if her uncharastically visible sign of distress made him even angrier than he already was.
Shibue locked eyes with Kenichi, who's expression had taken a decidedly mulish cast. Weirder, she began to hear a grinding noise, like someone was sharpening a Kunai, but it was off, like they weren't using a whetstone but instead sharpening a kunai on steel?
"Kenichi, you need rest."
The sound abruptly cut off when she spoke again. And stubborn Kenichi shook his head no, refusing her? Indignantly, Shibue almost began to threaten him again, only for reality to reassert itself and she recalled that not only did she have no swarm to threaten with, she had no Kaiya for her Team, and that nothing about this situation was normal or acceptable.
She could let this pass, because she could understand why he was refusing. She too was worried. Kenichi was part of the team too, though, and like all of them, needed help. He clearly needed sleep. She wanted to go check in with anyone in charge, see if any new information had surfaced, see if any decisions had been made. But that shouldn't take long, hopefully. Maybe then Kenichi will listen to reason?
After all, she was just a chunin - she was not part of any decision making process. She did not contribute to strategy or choices. Her responsibility, beyond what command told her to do, was to her team above all else. And right now, she couldn't imagine anyone would need her more then her team did.
Shibue knew that she needed them. She couldn't even bring herself to make a Dark Lady joke in her head - although she liked to refer to her friends as her minions, and that she needed to keep them alive so they could serve her, thinking so now felt like it cheapened Kaiya far more than anything else. Her Team weren't just minions - they were so much more. And the only reason she wasn't still in bed holding them tight was because she had a responsibility to make sure they were safe. Asking base leadership if there was anything her team needed to do to be ready for their next move was the most important thing she could do to help them at this moment. She fully expected the answer to be to wait, but it was her duty to ask.
Than she could come back and be where she was really needed.
"Kenichi, I am going to check in with base command. When I come back, you will go into the tent and sleep, and I will sit watch. Doomsday, keep an eye on him."
Kenichi met her eyes at that, and stared her down. A moment later, he finally nodded. Good. Shibue could understand his reaction, and could appreciate what he was doing. He too was a member of the Team, and he too would be feeling the loss.
Shibue turned and walked, to see what this new, terrible, Kaiya-less day would hold for her Team.