Author's Note: This is crossposted on AO3. There are accopanying pictures and mood music over there if you're into that. Title is the same and so is my username. This is also the edited down version of a Quest over at Fiction dot live if you want to see the original, raw version of this as it happens.
There are footnotes. They're not important, don't scroll back and forth to read them. They're just extras you can read at the end if you're interested. The indicators are just there to tell you what footnotes exist if, for example, you come across a concept that isn't familiar to you.
Episode 1: Stand Together or Die Alone
Opening Theme: Go by Flow (Author's Note: Author suggests playing music in the background as you read for enhanced atmosphere.)
"GOO~D MORNING KONOHA! The final body count for last night ended at a sturdy thirty, the last one squeaking in just before midnight; an Uchiha officer down in the Tumbles! Take cover folk because they are NOT going to let that one go!"
Shikamaru Nara groaned and rolled over in his bed, not wanting to get up.
"Rolling brown outs¹ are putting everything east of the Teshio on the fritz, and you know what that means!"
Machine spirits having another fight, no doubt.
"But down in Watson the Kitsune have been going at it with Maelstrom! The meat wagons are scraping bodies off the street! Don't let that distract you, though, folks, because things are heating up in the combat zone! Squads of rifle-toting hooligans have been seen rioting since that massive shipment of weapons was shot down. The KPD are putting out a call to arms for any citizen that wants to cash in on CZ bounties: The Combat Zone is under complete quarantine, no one gets out alive, and every corpse earns you some cold, hard ryo!
"But that's just another day in our city… of… dreams!"
The entertainment system clicked off at the end of the morning broadcast, and Shikamaru sighed into his pillow. You would think he'd be able to set his own schedule, considering he was both an adult and a Genin, but no. Genin just meant you were out of the academy, not that you were trusted to work on your own. Shikamaru was torn between just taking the four years before the automatic promotion easy, or going to one of the annual Chunin exams to get true independence faster.
Shikamaru groaned as he input his breakfast order into his internal agent.
"Such a pain," he sighed. Rolling out of bed, his Hyuuga Mk.3's automatically scanned his room, cross-referencing the location of items with the stored locations from when he went to sleep, telling him what he already knew; no one had been in his apartment while he slept. No one tripped the external sensors, either. Who would? There was nothing worth stealing in his apartment anyways.
Ding dang dong, His doorbell rang.
It was followed by a whir as Ino quick-hacked his door open.
"Wake the fuck up, Shika-" Whatever else she was going to say was cut off by the iron in her mouth. Shikamaru narrowed his eyes at the intruder, thumbing back the hammer on the overpowered gun.
Shikamaru raised an eyebrow. "I've had this apartment for three days, and you're already kicking down my door. I'm not sure if I should be flattered or paint the walls with your brains," he deadpanned.
Ino² batted her eyes in a way that said, "You'd never flatline your precious childhood friend!"
Shikamaru rolled his eyes and pulled The Problem Solver³ out of her mouth, "How's that iron taste?"
"I've had bigger."
"You're hilarious." Shikamaru looked behind Ino at the little drone, which opened its head compartment to reveal his breakfast.
"Your parents are so going to regret letting you live on your own by the end of the week. I'm thinking drugs, alcohol, parties, BD screenings, orgies, cult sacrifices, backroom deals, amateur tattooing, I can go on." Ino flops onto Shikamaru's couch, happy as you please to intrude on his space.
Shikamaru doesn't answer. His excuse was that he was eating, but in reality, dealing with Ino this early in the morning should be a crime. He knows she spends at least an hour every morning taking care of her appearance, so when the fuck did she wake up?
"So, everyone who graduated is going to meet up behind Lizzie's to touch base before going off on their first missions as adults." Ino finished saying whatever it was she was saying.
"Didn't they all get partied-out at the graduation bar crawl?" Shikamaru groused as he looked through his closet for something that said 'don't fuck with me,' but also said 'not important enough to be worth fighting.'
"You think Kiba or Naruko can get partied out?"
"Fair."
A jacket concealing ceramic scales went over an undershirt with Kevlar weave. His SMG—a Hadachi Shuriken⁴—holstered under his left arm under the jacket. The weight tugged down on his shoulders reassuringly. The pair made their way out of the building. Bachelor accommodations were normally pretty high security regardless of your tax bracket, but Shikamaru preferred the anonymity of the apartment complex. That, and it was about as far from his parents as he could get without them having a fit.
Lizzie's bar was the headquarters of the Mox gang. Used to be that the Mox took care of sex workers, their kids, and general orphans. Probably why Naruko ended up here more often than not. Now they're halfway to being just another gang, no better than an illegal corp. Shikamaru wondered if they should find another stomping ground. They really only came here because it was a place away from school and the clan compounds that they could gather.
The overgrown parking lot at the back of the bar was where most of the workers' kids went if their parents couldn't afford to send them to school or a daycare, which was most of them. Mox preferred their girls doing BD's rather than selling themselves directly. Pay's worse, but it was safer.
"Hey, sleepyhead!" A nasally feminine voice called out, followed by a bouncing blonde, as Naruko ran up, turning to Ino. "Holy shit, you actually managed to get him out of bed!"
"Don't sound so surprised, dead last! Unlike some people, I have more than one talent," Ino snarked back.
"Oh, so you can suck dick and wake up sleepy ninja!" Naruko⁵ shot back, lightning fast.
Sakura⁶ snickered as she came up behind her new teammate.
"Et tu, Brute?" Ino whines.
Sakura just gives her the finger, apparently their 'rivalry' for Satsuki is still ongoing.
"Heyo!" Kiba⁷ follows before Ino, Naruko, and Sakura can get into another fight. Trailing behind the boisterous boy and his dog are Shino⁸ and Hinata⁹. Much further back trails Satsuki Uchiha¹⁰ and Choji Akimichi¹¹.
The nine of them came together: Some grinning, some looking annoyed, all happy to finally be out of the academy. Fourteen long years training side-by-side to get to this point.
"Hey kids!" A woman's voice called out from the back door of Lizzie's. The nine turn to one of their favourite bouncers.
"Hey Rita!" They chorus. Rita's only a couple years older than them, but she had been around longer than they had been and was de facto babysitter when they were younger.
Rita raised an eyebrow at the etched metal that the kids wear. Some on headbands, some on belts, or armbands. With a small grin, she said, "Well, you little squirts are finally all grown up. Lucky you, getting to stay kids for as long as you did."
Naruko snorted. "It sucked! No one in the village would give us drink, we couldn't get any of the good ninja BDs, ugh! Stupid Hokage."
"Don't you want to be Hokage?" someone asks.
"Yeah! I'll be a cool one though! With blackjack! And hookers!"
Rita chuckles. "Maybe you can even let us outsiders see this 'hidden village' of yours."
Naruko thumbed her nose at Rita, "You wish! Only nova punks get in, no tattletales!"
A ping in Shikamaru's internal comm alerts him to a new message, one from his Jonin commander:
[Looks like our mission has been pushed up. Meet me at the pinned location ASAP.]
Shikamaru saw Ino and Chouji's eyes flicker as their agent-contacts superimposed the messaging app over their vision before he, too, opened it.
Flower Princess (Ino): Sensei! Why do we have to take the KCART¹²? Just pick us up in your car!
Chimney Sensei (Asuma): I'm already at the target's location.
Flower Princess (Ino): It's gonna take, like, 40 minutes for us to get there!
Chimney Sensei (Asuma): Then it's a good thing that the target doesn't start their lunch break for another couple hours.
Chimney Sensei (Asuma): Also, who's been messing with the chat? We made this yesterday.
Flower Princess (Ino): Don't try to change the subject. Hours?! Then why even call us in!? It's not like we're going to storm the building, right?
Chimney Sensei (Asuma): Correct. The target is Hina Soretchi, a middle manager at Hoi-Pon Electronics. We need to pull all their knowledge about the CC5E-2 microchips and relay them to dispatch, who will then pass it onto the customer. That means all files they have in their agent that mention the chips and any memories they have in their heads about it. Flicking you the full details.
Flower Princess (Ino): If you want me to search through someone's head, we're going to need somewhere secluded and quiet.
Chimney Sensei (Asuma): Target is known to go off the grid during their lunch break. This will be the best time to get the job done, considering their place of work and home both have high security.
Choji: So we tail them on their lunch break, grab them, pull the data and memories, and exfil?
Chimney Sensei (Asuma): Ideally, Genin Yamanaka will put them under a genjutsu strong enough that they won't even know what happened. We get a bonus if the target remains unaware that the data has been taken.
Flower Princess (Ino): You still could have totally picked us up instead of having us ride the KCART.
Flower Princess (Ino): Lazy sensei
System: Asuma Sarutobi's screen name has been changed to Lazy Sensei.
Lazy Sensei (Asuma): Ah, I see now
The walk to the KCART from Lizzie's isn't very far, but it's still long enough for a Nara agent to intercept. From the corner of his eye, Shikamaru noticed a shadow that didn't move correctly. With minuscule movements, the living shadow relays his instructions.
[Target's electronics contain data on Promare Pharmaceuticals. Extract. Rank D]
Shikamaru's shadow flexed in an affirmative. Paranoid agents, couldn't they just send him a message? 'Oh, but Shikamaru, your agent could get breached!' Unlikely.
The ride to the target location wasn't actually that bad, for all of Ino's complaining. The worst part of the trip was walking through the industrial area. The streets were relatively clean, since it was a corpo zone, but the fumes were enough to make a non-local retch. Most of the people living here were walking around in gas masks, filters thick with contaminants.
As they approached, Team Ten stretched their bodies and minds, stimulating the production of physical and mental energy. By the time they reached their commanding officer, they were all performing low-level chakra breathing.
Asuma Sarutobi nodded to them from where he was leaning against a brick wall in an alley, his dusty green flack jacket and blue uniform somehow blending into the scenery.
"There you all are, what took you so long?" the man grinned at his genin.
Ino just rolled her eyes and posted up on the wall across from the Jonin. Asuma pinged a pic in their briefing documents.
"That's your target. Confirm they're at their place of work, gather intel, and alert us when they're going to start their lunch break."
Shikamaru and Ino both settled into their stances. An observant person would notice that both stances had their fingertips touching. This was to complete the circuits inlaid into the skin of their hands, turning their hands into powerful directional wireless net transmitters.
Red filled the two teenager's eyes as they began the long, tedious task of circumventing corpo network security without leaving a trace.
Choji pulled out a bag of lime and black pepper chips, settling in for a long wait.
An hour later Shikamaru spoke up, "I'm in." Shikamru sounded bored.
"Which crack did you find?" Ino sounded annoyed.
"Robotic arms are running an outdated BIOS."
Ino hummed, "Gimme a minute, I'm still reconstructing my trojan horse inside the datafort. I just need one more employee to open an email."
"Classy."
Another half an hour before Ino spoke again. "Target confirmed."
Asuma noted the time. "Start collecting data. You have about an hour before their lunch break unless they break their schedule."
"Got it."
When Choji finally got the signal to start the tailing part of the mission, he let out a sigh of relief. Being the 'muscle' on a team with two netrunners meant he got a lot of time to relax.
And a lot of time to be bored.
He stretched as he stood, this mission was shaping up to be pretty standard. With a flick, he limbered up his hands before he began shaping. He sent a question, a prayer, a command into the aether written in chakra, and the universe answered, cloaking his form in that of another.
"Ninja technique: transformation," the boy whispered, giving the transformation that little extra metaphysical oomph by declaring it.
With a cheery little whistle, Choji began tailing their target—the middle-aged woman walking down the sidewalk.
It didn't take long for the woman to reach her destination, which made sense, considering her lunch was supposed to only take an hour. Choji opened his agent and flicked a text to his team.
Choji: Target just went into a known White Claw gang hideout.
Shikamaru: Fuck, is there a time limit on this job?
Lazy Sensei (Asuma): You technically have a week, but you're only being paid for a one day, one person C-rank mission.
Flower Princess (Ino): I am not walking around all day while some dorpher gets high, let's just infil.
Shikamaru: What's our casualty limit?
Lazy Sensei (Asuma): It isn't worth the effort to rile up a gang. No killing unless you can make it look like an accident or pin it on someone we don't like.
Team Ten reconvened near the building the target disappeared into. The dingy awning boasted King Dry Cleaning, but the back room told a different story. The rooms that let out onto the back alley and the apartments above the dry cleaners played host to a splinter faction of the Tiger Claw gang: the White Claws.
The four approached from the back, the alley silent, choked by smog and shadowed by an overpass arching high above. Ground floor would be the most guarded. Shikamaru looked up, "Choji, get me roof access."
"You got it." Choji centred himself; the hand signs for his technique flowing together with the ease of long practice.
"Multi-size technique." Choji's body bulged and grew, the fabric containing it getting tighter before it, too, began to grow. Placing his back to the wall, Choji cupped his hands. Shikamaru backed up almost to the opposite wall before dashing toward the now much larger boy.
Shikamaru planted one foot in Choji's cupped hands and the rotund boy launched Shikamaru up the side of the building with a quiet "hup!" of expended effort.
With a tap-tap-tap, Shikamaru ran the last couple steps up to the roof just in time to hear Ino hit the wall below him.
Looking down over the edge as Ino joins him on the roof, Shikamaru watched as Choji stuck his palms to the wall with chakra and launched himself up the side of the building like a spider-gorilla.
Asuma, of course, walked slowly up the wall just to style on his subordinates.
"I recognized a chakra signature as I came up the wall," Choji said.
"Shit, they have an adept or something?"
Choji shakes his head. "One, but that's not all I noticed. No, I recognized one. Satsuki is in there."
"What? How the hell did Satsuki get here before us?"
"Well, we did have to tail the target for nearly an hour."
Shikamaru sighed, "Fair. What do you think she's doing?"
The other two Genin just shrug.
Shikamaru shrugged, "Well, no change to the mission unless she interferes. Ino, get the door open."
Ino took point, breached the roof stairwell's electronic lock and picked the physical lock easily. With silent footsteps, the four ninja darted into the penthouse suite.
The entire fourth floor is a single open plan apartment decked out in oriental chic. A single White Claw guard sits on the couch watching baseball.
Shikamaru planted his back against one of the columns that the apartment has instead of walls, but doesn't have time to say anything before Choji's clamped his arms around the ganger's mouth and neck.
Shikamaru facepalms as the guard's struggles fade, "I thought we were going to do this quietly?" he hissed.
"What? I'm securing our back route!" Choji whisper-shouted back.
"Boys!" Ino interrupted, "I've got something here."
Ino's sat in front of a laptop, tapping on the keys. The screen shows camera feeds for the dry cleaner's downstairs. "Looked like the target went into the back and up the stairs."
Shikamaru pulled out his personal link, queued up a basic facial recognition daemon, and connected to the laptop. "Uploading… Got it. We'll be pinged if any of the cameras see the target leaving."
There's no internal stairwell that traverses the entire building top to bottom. That's quite the fire hazard. There is, however, an elevator.
Ino pressed the down button before anyone could stop her. The blonde blinks owlishly at her teammates. "What? I disconnected the elevator from the security system for the next sixty seconds, it'll be fi~ne."
Shikamaru gave her an 'are you an idiot look'. "Don't you think someone'll find it strange that the elevator is moving around but no one is getting on or off?"
"I really don't think they're paying that much attention."
The elevator doors open with a loud ding to reveal a man in a biker jacket. Shikamaru and Ino are posted up on either side of the elevator, out of sight, and Asuma is somehow stuck to the ceiling by his back.
Choji, on the other hand, is being very poorly hidden by a column which is not wide enough for his girth.
The thug steps out of the elevator with a laugh. "Hiyamaru, if you want to jump out and spook me, use a better hiding spot than a column."
Choji puts on a completely unbelievable 'tough guy' voice. "Wow, guess you caught me. I thought I would get you too!"
"You, ok dude, you sound different. Caught a cold?"
Ino just cannot control herself. "More like catching these hands!"
With a couple hand-signs, Ino puts the man into a sleep genjutsu.
Shikamaru catches the man before he falls. "Amateurs, I'm working with amateurs."
Choji steps out bashfully. "Sorry, guys. I guess I'm really off my game today."
"Eh," Asuma said as he casually walks down from the ceiling. "During my team's first real mission, we got ambushed by a PetroChem task force that thought we were terrorists. You're doing pretty good compared to that."
Shikamaru sighed, "Ino, puppet this guy."
"Sure. Keep my body warm for me, 'kay?" With a few more signs, Ino launched her consciousness into the sleeping man. As she did so, Shikamaru finished his own technique, his shadow stretching to Ino's feet as her body began to topple. With a jerk, Ino's body took the same posture as Shikamaru.
Shikamaru looked at their 'new ally.' "You good?"
The man gave him a thumbs-up. "All good, let's go."
The five of them use the elevator to go down to the third floor. This floor was more conventional. A hallway with what appeared to be four apartments, two to each side.
"Satsuki's on this floor, and one other chakra signature," Choji informed them.
"Same room?"
"No clue, I'm not a sensor, you know."
"Are they at least on the same side?"
"Yeah, left."
"Ino, do a walk through on the right side. Choji, conceal your chakra and peek the left side. Go." The pair nodded and moved to their tasks.
As they do, Asuma quietly asked, "Are you always the de facto leader?"
Shikamaru nods. "I'm the best at strategy and tactics. Unless we're doing street-thug diplomacy or in a restaurant, I'm in charge."
"Hmm, I'm going to have to insist that they both get some experience in leadership positions as time goes on. Can't let someone try for Chunin if they can only take orders."
Shikamaru nodded.
"I've got Satsuki and another young woman—doesn't appear to be highly placed. First room on the left. The second apartment appears to have a couple having sex. Hopefully neither is our target."
"Both of these are empty apart from what looked to be a walk-in vault. Probably where they store the good drugs and weapons," 'Ino' said as she pilots the ganger's body out of the second apartment on the right.
"The White Claw that was talking with Satsuki is approaching the door," Choji informs them.
"Here." Shikamaru dashed into the first apartment on the right, followed closely by Ino's body mimicking his movements, then by Choji. Bringing up the rear was the body Ino's piloting. Somehow, Asuma got into the apartment before them.
The door to their hiding place closed just before the one across the hall opened. Team Ten listened as the ganger walked down the hall and into the elevator.
A moment later, a pair of doors open. Shikamaru and Satsuki stared at each other across the hall, her red eyes boring into his brown. Shikamaru noticed that she was dressed as a member of the White Claws, a blindingly white leather jacket over black biker hear with neon red piping. A white and gold oni mask hung around her neck.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Satsuki hissed.
"It's our first gig as a team, what the hell do you think I'm doing here? What are you doing here, and where's the rest of your team?" Shikamaru answered.
Satsuki scoffed. "Jonin Hatake is well known for never showing up less than an hour late, so I came to get some actual work done while my teammates laze about."
"He is," Asuma added unhelpfully.
Shikamaru sighed and pressed his head against the door frame to ease the headache his life was becoming. "And your work just so happened to take you straight to the same location as our target. Fuck my life."
"You think I'm happy to have you stomping all over the place where one of our informants lives?" Satsuki retorted, crossing her arms.
Shikamaru scrubs his face with his hands. "Fuck. Do you at least know where our target is? Have you seen her?" He flicked Satsuki a pic of the target.
"She doesn't look like any White Claw member I've seen. If she's a client, she'll be on the second floor where all the deals happen. You should have seen her on your way up here."
Shikamaru looked at her, stone faced.
Satsuki looked back for a moment. "What?"
"We came in from the roof."
Satsuki stared at him for another moment.
"Alright, I'll leave you to it," she said, turning to go.
"Really? Just like that?"
"Not my mission, not my circus."
Ping, Shikamaru's comm pings him as one of the cameras in the dry cleaner positively identifies their target and sent him a short video of her leaving the building.
"I hate today," the boy muttered.
Shikamaru forwards the video snippet to his team. "Target just left the building."
Satsuki starts walking away as Ino and Choji look at each other in alarm.
"I am not failing our first ever mission!" Ino announced.
"My parents would kill me!" Choji added.
"Window?"
"Window."
The body that Ino is piloting fell to the ground with an unceremonious thump as Ino took control of her own body again, wrenching it away from Shikamaru's shadow grasp.
Choji pulled some plastic explosive from under the plate on the back of his hand—rolled it up—and baseball pitched it against the window in the apartment they were previously hiding in. The warm, malleable explosive flattened out and sticks to the window.
Choji and Ino sprinted toward the window as Choji pulled out a taser, firing the prongs toward the explosive.
Shikamaru glanced at Asuma. The man had a shit eating grin on his face as he slowly lit a cigarette.
The taser prongs hit home and the electrical current between them activated the explosive, blowing out the window of the room in a 'tame' explosion which rained glass down upon the street.
Ino and Choji jperformed a truly gratuitous act of autodefenestration out of the now glass-free window, flipping and spinning as they fell to the ground, and landing as the last of the glass stopped tinkling. Their target was staring at them, having barely taken ten steps away from the building.
Ino pointed. "Get her!"
Choji roared and grew to twice his size as he ran and scooped up the woman, carrying her into an alley. Ino followed.
Shikamaru thumped his head against the wall repeatedly, hoping, perhaps, that his overly excitable friends might suddenly transform into normal people. He hopes in vain.
Having remained in the third floor apartment, Shikamaru quickly plugged his personal connection into the smart-thermometer in the apartment and uploaded a daemon which will corrupt and erase any video of what just happened. It was easy enough since basic users logging into the system from the floor he was on had admin privileges.
Shikamaru and Asuma took the elevator up to the roof, avoiding the White Claw gangers that had wandered out onto the street to look at the glass covering the road and sidewalk. They didn't seem to be particularly upset or alarmed. Perhaps something like this has happened before? Ino and Choji got away clean, at least.
Shikamaru and Asuma hopped across the rooftops to the alley Ino and Choji had carried the woman into. They found the three of them in a small basketball court—empty, thankfully. The target was asleep, another genjutsu from Ino, no doubt.
"Alright, let's get this data and set it up to look like nothing's happened," Shikamaru sighed. "Well, relatively nothing."
Ino was about to connect to the woman when Shikamaru stepped in. "I'll handle that. What the hell was that with the window? This was supposed to be a pure stealth op."
Ino refused to look guilty. "Hey, no one said we had to take the data stealthily, just that it wasn't worth killing anyone or starting any trouble for. No one's dead and no trouble started."
"Did you forget the part where we got a bonus if no one noticed that we took the data? I think the corp three blocks from an explosion is going to probably notice some tampering," Shikamaru grumbled.
"Ah," Ino said, "I forgot about that. But she was already leaving!"
"We're ninja, we could have caught up! This isn't like your dad's 'missions' where it turns out that half the targets have chakra training." Shikamaru took a deep breath, "Get in her head, pull what you can, I'll handle the electronic data."
"Alright, but it'll be difficult since I had to put her to sleep," Ino said. With a couple hand signs, Ino threw her consciousness into the woman's body. Choji caught Ino's body as it slumped over, holding her off the dirty alleyway ground.
"Just do your best," Shikamaru connected his personal link to one of the target's neck ports.
Her internal network is surprisingly complex, and the security tight. Each probe was met with an 'access denied'. Shikamaru began to grow frustrated, hammering at the ports with access requests. The woman groaned, beginning to wake.
"Ino!"
"Sh'dd'p, m'wrkn." the target mumbled, but something must have happened to set off extra security, as the target's internal agent started deleting data.
"Fuck." Shikamaru sent in a brute force daemon to destroy the target's ICE and yanks the data they want before everything is deleted.
Shikamaru groaned. There goes the extra pay-cheque for the data that his clan wanted. "I got it, but everything was wiped. They're gonna know something happened, what with the broken window and the wiped data."
Ino hummed to herself as she returned to her body, and then gasped at her own brilliance. "Back-date the data wipe to when the window exploded. They'll think that the explosion set off a security feature."
Shikamaru looked over at the happy blonde.
"Sure," he said, and changed the file. "Alright, let's get her up and going."
Shikamaru's shadow lanced out, and he took control of the woman's body. Slowly, carefully, Shikamaru puppeteered her body to walk down the alley and around the corner, to the edge of his control, before Ino released the genjutsu the target was under.
The ninja didn't see it, but the woman suddenly came to her senses and looked around. She looked back at the broken glass littering the street and the White Claw thugs standing around menacingly. From her perspective, the small pop followed by broken glass just happened a second ago. She quickly walked away, hoping none of the gang members call out to her.
The four ninja, one laughing, one slumped, and two looking sheepish, make their way to their Jonin's car.
"Hey, it's not the worst first mission I've been on," Asuma laughed.
"But it's not the best, either, is it?" Choji sighed.
Asuma sent a grin back their way. "Of course not! Because the worst and best first missions I've been on are the same mission!"
The four ninja drove to Konoha's mission desk. Normally, they could just send a 'complete' message to the automated system, but the first mission was special.
The Hokage himself—Hiruzen Sarutobi—sat behind a polished, real wood desk to greet them, smoking lazily in his white and red robes.
Shikamaru uploaded the data to a spare shard that the Hokage handed him. "Mission accomplished, Lord Hokage."
"Excellent," The old man beamed, "You'll also be expected to write up a full report, and—if necessary—perform a debrief with one of our intelligence officers—though we usually don't have to do those with C-ranks."
The three Genin nodded.
"Now, off you go," The Hokage says with a wave of his hand, "I'll get the story from your Jonin. Most of the other recently graduated teams have already returned. I'm sure you all know where to find them."
The three ninja left the building as quickly as they can, only breathing a sigh of relief once they're outside.
"Lizzie's?" Ino asked.
"Gods, yes. I normally don't drink, but the pair of you are driving me to it," Shikamaru groaned.
"Sorry, dad," Ino giggled.
Footnotes: Footnotes are extra little tidbits for those interested in the minutia of the world that isn't story relevant right now and might not be ever. If you're just here for the story, skip to the next chapter.
1: Defined: Brown Out
A brown out occurs when the electrical power cannot support how much energy the power grid is asking for. Incandescent lights get dimmer, electric motors run slower, LED's flicker or go out, and computer system might not run or have glitches.
2: Ino Yamanaka
Shikamaru's thoughts on Ino Yamanaka: I've known Ino practically since the day I was born, so I can say in no uncertain terms that she's the most troublesome person to exist on this planet.
She always wants to do stuff, and she likes to drag Chouji and I along for the ride. Doesn't help that Sakura is usually with her.
Teammate-wise, she's a pretty proficient netrunner and can take over people's bodies by throwing her mind into them, leaving me to have to keep her body safe while she's out having 'fun.'
When it comes to lethal combat, Ino prefers to use a Kunai or her knives, though she's also packing an anti-personnel mine under the backplate of her armour.
3: The Problem Solver
Shikamaru's thought on The Problem Solver: It's a single shot handgun chambered in 50 BMG, or alternatively, 12 gauge. Smooth bore and meant for close-ish range, The Problem Solver will solve exactly one problem for me, and only one problem. I figure that if someone or something attacks me in my own home that can handle this, I'm probably already fucked.
4: Ninja Guns
Iruko Umino on Ninja Guns: Ninja weapons—such as the Hadachi brand Shuriken or the Federated Arms brand Kunai—are built very differently from conventional firearms. These weapons appear significantly oversized for their firepower, and they feel it, being much heavier than their conventional counterparts. This is due to the fact that they have large integrated suppressors and an inner-outer frame construction with noise-cancelling foam between the two.
To take the weapon from merely 'suppressed' to truly silenced, you have to buy or make the correct, patented, ammunition for the weapon you're using. Inside the bullet casing—between the bullet and the propellant—are a series of specially designed and stacked rubber mesh screens that slot into place within the integrated suppressor right behind the bullet. These are backended by a solid rubber cap which caps the point the bullet exits the gun. This keeps all the expanding gas within the noise-cancelling frame.
Ideally, the next bullet passes through these meshes and cap, destroying them and slotting their own meshes into place. Of course, this rubber will slowly fill up the area used for gas expansion. It's suggested that you clean out the gas expansion chambers regularly, though obviously not during a mission, as the entire point of the special design of the guns is to leave no trace but the bullet and the body.
To help with leaving no trace the extraction mechanism and the magazines have been redesigned. Instead of ejecting a spent case out onto the ground, ninja guns extract the cases from the chamber, pull them back behind the stack of waiting ammunition, and deposit them into a retaining stack in the magazine. This means that the magazines for Ninja guns are almost twice the length of regular magazines.
Though it should be noted that while ninja guns can take regular ammunition, they do not take regular magazines.
5: Naruko Uzumaki
Shikamaru's thoughts on Naruko Uzumaki: She's a hyperactive pain in the ass. Spent almost as much time asleep in class as he did, and when she was awake, she was disrupting more often than not, and her grades reflected it. No one knows how she graduated, but she says it was something impressive. No one believes her.
No one believes her story about how she got her gorilla arm cybernetics either, 'found them in the trash' my ass. She doesn't really have any friends, mostly just hanging around anyone who doesn't tell her to delta. She says ninja ammo and guns are too expensive, so her pistol is a standard Unity.
Good with her fists or a knife though, and she managed to make the mission quota to graduate, so I suppose it's not a problem.
6: Sakura Haruno
Shikamaru's thoughts on Sakura Haruno: Teacher's pet. Bad at taijutsu, so likes to be as far away as possible. Got herself a modified Arasaka QJ-95 Smart Mortar backpack with a Nova Arms Scyth top loading shinobi shotgun as her backup. Probably got the shotgun because she's not the greatest shot either.
About a year after she joined the class she declared that she was my 'academic rival.' I was still trying back then, I guess. She never accepted that she 'won.'
7: Kiba Inuzuka
Shikamaru's thoughts on Kiba Inuzuka: Naruko but a boy. Pays slightly more attention in class, is slightly less disruptive. Has a fluffy dog, so automatically better, even if I'm more of a cat person.
The Inuzuka's 'Fang' style techniques involve creating a hard chakra shell around their bodies and spinning at high speeds while attacking with their chakra enhanced rippers, noted for ablating armour. Kiba's fairly well versed in the technique, and he should be, considering it's basically the only tool in his kit with how often he uses it.
Inuzuka also have canine companions, which are typically also augmented. This on top of being able to use chakra and capable of using 'Fang' style techniques. It's completely unfair because whenever anyone fought Kiba they also fought Akamaru. Two on One isn't fair, goddammit! Of course, only Satsuki, Naruko, and occasionally Choji could beat them!
Together, an Inuzuka and their companion(s) are regularly deployed against fast, hard body targets that would otherwise avoid anti-armour techniques.
8: Shino Aburame
Shikamaru's thoughts on Shino Aburame: Quiet, smart, doesn't yell or tell me to pay attention. I'd call him my second best-friend if we ever spoke more than a dozen words to each other a month. That and the bugs. No one likes bugs except the Aburame… and weirdos, I guess. The Aburame use a mixture of natural bugs and small robotic drones to poison their enemies or act as targeting guides for smart munitions or artillery. Shino uses his primarily to hack his opponents, shutting down their cybernetics while they die of poison.
If you have cyber eyes, like me, you either get good at handling the Blind quick-hack or you get absolutely stomped in every sparring match. I still got stomped, but at least I saw it coming.
9: Hinata Hyuuga
Shikamaru's thoughts on Hinata Hyuuga: Also quiet, why can't more of my classmates be quiet? Bought my eyes from her family. They're as rich as corpo executives.
Hinata, like all Hyuuga, sports the highest tech optics that their labs can create. Based on the organic sharingan eyes, the Hyuuga's eyes are designed to be interfaced with the Hyuuga smart shotgun to deliver up to hundreds of pinpoint micro rockets to the target. Supposedly, the eyes are so powerful that they can track incoming smart rockets and reroute the shotgun's ordinance to intercept.
On top of that, their eyes can see tenketsu points, which allows them to use their gentle fist style martial art to turn off a person's use of chakra, which is an absolute pain in the ass to deal with. They can even do it through armour, since it's their chakra attacking you and not their actual hands.
10: Satsuki Uchiha
Shikamaru's thoughts on Satsuki Uchiha: Used to sit somewhere between Sakura and Chouji energy-wise, though she never stuck around to socialize after classes, not that we had a lot of time for that anyway. Clammed up a few years ago, got all broody.
She uses an Uchiha Pinwheel precision rifle. Like all ninja guns, it's short and leaves no trace. The cartridge is short and fat with a relatively small bullet to facilitate a high rate of fire while still being silent and armour piercing.
All this so that the Uchiha can lord their sharingan over the rest of us. Just because you can see people using speedware doesn't mean you can actually fight them without it. Of course, speedware is one of the first things that an Uchiha gets after activating their sharingan.
Satsuki's cousin was so good with it, they called him the Teleporter.
11: Choji Akimichi
Shikamaru's thoughts on Chouji Akimichi: Best friend. Good at cloud watching. Always has good food. Known each other since we were infants. Akimichi genetic engineering and technique mastery means he has basically infinite stamina.
Sparring with him is a pain. Either you win immediately or you've already lost. Strong enough to break out of my shadow possession and punch straight through my blocks and deflections.
The Akimichi in general specialize in heavy armour, heavy weapons, and demolition. Choji doesn't carry any firearms, instead, beneath each plate of armour is an equally sized plate of C4, which he can use to get anywhere and destroy anything.
Don't call him fat. Just because he knows that he was engineered to look that way doesn't mean he's not sensitive about it.
12: KCART
Sakura's thoughts on the KCART: The KCART, or Konoha City Area Rapid Transport, is a network of magnetic levitation monorail trains that run over, under, and through Konoha. The city acknowledges six lines and twenty-three stations as officially existing and having service, though savvy travellers know which unofficial lines are still running.
During the day, they're pretty safe. You only have to really worry about pickpockets and -sockets. Most gangs that do more than mildly inconvenience commuters during the rush hours find themselves quickly dealt with by corporate security. Once night falls though, the stations usually have low-level gangers just sitting around waiting to mug people.
Never trust someone who said they know where to find a Deep Line, and never follow them there. It's usually worse if they're telling the truth.