The Bodukkan Autonomous Levelling Plate, Material Storage 12
Hinata, Kiba, Shino, and Akamaru were stacked up on either side of the door. Within, there was shuffling and quiet talking as the Vamps felt the effects of the sedative.
[Three,] Shino counted down.
[Two.] Kiba extended his rippers, the titanium steel claws pushing out from the ends of his fingers.
[One.] The tenketsu in Hinata's fingertips flexed against the dense chakra within.
[Breach.] It was sent calmly. There was no stutter, no hesitation. Hinata pressed her fingertips to the handle of the sliding door and destroyed the delicate electronic internals with a jet stream of chakra. The door clicked, the safety feature unlocking it, and Hinata wrenched it open. Into the gaping maw Kiba threw in a flash bang; Shino followed it up with a pair of smoke grenades.
With a pop and a hiss, it was showtime. Akamaru and Kiba were through the door almost on top of each other, Akamaru's own titanium steel scratchers gouging into the concrete floor. Shino and Hinata followed the doggy pair in, placing their backs against the wall on either side of the doorway, their eyes sweeping the room.
Hinata's byakugan, still active, was lighting up moving targets for the three of them.
"Inuzuka style! Fang Passing Fang!" A sound like a dozen buzzsaws echoed off the walls as man and dog became a cyclone of ripping death.
Blood sprayed as they tore through the room like a demented, steel clawed version of the Tasmanian devil from a kids cartoon that Hinata can't quite remember the name of. The crack and rasp of steel blade shattering bone marked where Shino and Hinata put down anything dog and dogboy missed.
The mission seemed to be going much easier than they had expected.
Kiba and Akamaru skidded to a halt, rippers cutting deep furrows into the concrete. The concrete room was filled with the panting of three genin and the sputtering hiss as the smoke grenades released the last of their payload.
They couldn't see anything through the smoke besides what Hinata's byakugan highlighted for them.
But they could hear it.
Wet, rasping breath. Dread rolled through Hinata like the smoke rolled through the room. Was she not strong enough? Did she leave them half-dead, struggling to breathe through blood? Or were the rumours true, and these monsters were nigh unkillable.
Kiba and Akamaru stood on one side of the room. Shino and Hinata the other.
Between them rose a dozen shadowy figures in the smoke.
"Not dead yet," Kiba growled, low and tense.
Shino's mind worked quickly, "Enhanced physical abilities, perhaps additional coagulant in their blood, or endorphins and painkillers to keep fighting even when wounded; their enhancements are greater than reported. Aim for instant kill shots." Shino's arms clicked open, his jacket sleeves splitting along a line of buttons, his mantis blades¹ extending and unfolding.
Hinata sheathed her combat knife and took the first stance of the Gentle Fist². Kiba pulled out a sealing scroll and unsealed a machete, spinning the blade with a whir.
The chaos resumed. Kiba's machete lifted and fell like a guillotine, separating heads from bodies. Shino's mantis blades found eye sockets and brain pans, scratching lines like runes of death against the inside of skulls.
Hinata juked and weaved between vampires and thralls, applying the gentle fist as best she could. Each tap should have left behind ripped and torn muscles and organs; mulched meat where once there was a brain stem, but the chakra for the gentle fist style was counter to her nature, and attacks which should have killed only knocked the half-dead to the ground.
With a crunch, one of those half-dead vampires crushed Hinata's nose, sending her spinning to the ground. In return, she planted her combat knife into the thing's chest, but it barely seemed to slow it down.
Roaring, Kiba flew across the room and took the vampire's head clean off, but another cry stopped Kiba short from continuing his rampage as Shino was raked across the side by genetically augmented nails.
But genetically augmented nails are no match against titanium steel. Akamaru pounced on the offending thrall, crushing its head beneath his paws.
Hinata kicked at knees, shattering them. Down on the ground like worms, the thralls and vamps were easier to kill with her Gentle Fist. Pushing and holding her hands against their writing bodies, even her poorly aspected chakra being fired into their tenketsu caused bright red internal bleeding to bloom like roses against their skin.
Kiba roared as four vamps dogpiled on him, but with another call of his family's technique, they were rendered into so many strips of meat.
The three bloodied genin stood in the centre of the room, around them sprawled a dozen and then some bodies, blood pooling in every corner. Jonin Kurenai was about to call the mission a success.
A door opened.
In the fading smoke, a woman in a long, red coat stepped into the room. Her hair was tied in a tight, black bun behind her head, and an ornate gun hung loosely in her right hand.
"Now, what is all this?" The woman asked, her vibrant orange eyes raking over the three genin.
Interview Room 8
Shikamaru took in the surprise in Jonin Sarutobi's face. "I said jump, and they were in the air before they could even ask how high." Shikamaru leaned back in his chair, treating it more as a throne than the plastic piece of crap it was.
Jonin Asuma just gaped at the young man. It seemed obvious to Shikamaru that he had to recalibrate his entire understanding of the situation and change tracks. After a moment, the jonin's eyes sharpened, and he leaned forward, his green flak jacket pressing against the table as the big man rested on his elbows.
"So, a web of blackmail ten years in the making, is that what you're saying?"
"I admit it was more difficult than all that, but yes." Shikamaru shrugged, hands up, as if to add, 'that's how it is.'
"Interesting. You must have truly worked hard to gain all that, because I spoke to your classmates."
A tingle of dread climbed up Shikamaru's spine with claws of fear.
"They tell a very different story." Jonin Sarutobi leaned forward, crowding Shikamaru's space from across the table
"When asked, your classmates gave you near universal praise. The word genius was tossed around a lot, along with 'loyal,' 'lazy,' and 'grumpy.' That last I got quite a kick out of. Miss Haruno even said that you were her academic rival. Interesting that she would say that about someone who is blackmailing the entire class."
Shikamaru didn't know what to say. Every thought that came to his head would just make things worse, if they could get worse.
"Honestly, Genin Nara, did you expect me to believe that you set up a conspiracy that complex for that long and nobody snitched? Under the noses of multiple chunin and jonin? To the point where your classmates are so cowed by you that they'd lie and say nice things about you, to me, someone they've met maybe twice ever, to such a degree that I'd be unable to detect it as a lie?" Jonin Sarutobi's eyes were hard, his mouth a pressed line.
Shikamaru's shoulders slumped. He'd tried, even if it hadn't been enough. That was becoming a habit, and he hated it.
Ninja Hospital Long Term Recovery, Room 3
Naruko reached for the door with a tentative hand. She was so nervous, her hand trembled. She could be forgiven for that, she thought, given the circumstances.
Kakashi loomed behind them, a wall of disapproval. Sakura, the only thing between Naruko and the tall man. Naruko still didn't feel safe from the scarecrow's baleful, cyclopean stare. Their jonin had pushed them hard, the last few days. As hard as they could handle, and then some.
Naruko had welcomed it. Welcomed the exhaustion so deep even her nightmares couldn't find her.
Red blood, somehow staining black hair into something darker; a colour to suck the life and happiness from a person.
The handle turned, and the door opened onto a sky blue room. It was furnished simply, everything in bright colours. There was a side table next to the bed, and a large window looking out into the city. The rain pattered against it, smearing the neon and concrete jungle outside.
Sakura's feet made little taps against the tile floor. Kakashi's were silent.
The overhead light was yellow, though Naruko didn't think the bulb was incandescent.
Probably a coloured LED.
A jacket hung on the back of the door with the Uchiha—A desk in the corner had a terminal on it with one of those big, boxy 3D holo-displays. Fancy.
The side table had a vase with some flowers in it. Naruko could see from where she stood that the tag was marked with the symbol for the Yamanaka Flower Shop.
Kakashi's voice broke Naruko from her careful attempt to not look at the dead girl sitting in the bed. "I'd like to say that I assume you've watched the videos I sent you, but I'm not sure if you still deserve the benefit of the doubt…"
"I watched them."
Naruko was pretty sure Satsuki really shouldn't be taking that tone with Instructor Kakashi right now.
"Good, then you'll know that you actually managed to surprise me. I had thought that the bell test was good—at the very least—at demonstrating to young genin just how stupid it would be to attack an A-class threat by themselves.
"And not two days later, what do you do? Why, Miss Uchiha—"
Naruko winced at the downgrade, Instructor Kakashi wasn't even acknowledging Satsuki's genin status.
"—You attack an A-class threat by yourself."
Satsuki looked away from them, "No one else was attacking it in the video I saw."
"Genin Haruno." Jonin Hatake's voice was sharp.
"Yes, Jonin Hatake!" Sakura straightened up into the shinobi version of military attention.
"Who was in command of the genin who responded to the call for aid?"
"Genin Shikamaru Nara, sir."
"Was Miss Uchiha given the opportunity to take command from Genin Nara?" Jonin Hatake too-nicely asked.
"She was."
"And yet she chose not to take command. Likely because she didn't want to be responsible for the force."
"No." Satsuki's voice was agitated, frayed.
Jonin Hatake looked down on the girl, "No?"
"It wasn't because I didn't want to be responsible."
"You know this for certain."
Satsuki's eyes met Jonin Hatake's single visible eye, "Yes. I'm the best fighter of the class by a long shot, but Sakura, Shino, and Shikamaru are all better tacticians than me… I'm not vain, I know my weaknesses."
"Do you? Because the fact that you're in that bed seems to tell a different story."
Satsuki's face scrunched up in a snarl, "Are you just here to lecture me, or is there a point to this?"
Jonin Hatake leaned down until he was looking the girl in the eye, only an inch away, "Let's start with your court-martial."
The Bodukkan Autonomous Levelling Plate, Material Storage 12
The difference between what your average ganger would call 'low' and 'high' combat isn't firepower, like many civilians would assume. Nor is it armour, or even tactics. It would take a great tactician with high-end armour and top tier firepower to match even the lowest 'high level' combatant.
No, the separator was speed. Karenzikov, Reflex Tuners, Synaptic Accelerators, Adrenal Boosters, and the Sandevistan. Individually, each of these implants could turn any street punk into a near-unstoppable killer, at least to those still working at 'merely' human speeds.
Hinata would have become lethally familiar with this concept, were it not for Kurenai. The Vampire Queen seemed to appear before Hinata, its visage hazy from the speed of its movements. The gaping maw of the creature's gun pointed into the hollow of her throat, and Hinata knew she was about to die.
But instead of giving Hinata a gory new breathing hole, the Vampire Lady's bullet tore through the muscle and bone of her shoulder, having been pushed aside by Kurenai. As Hinata fell back, screaming, the jonin and the vampire disappeared from human sight, the genin only able to follow their fight by the scars of their passing.
Concrete chipped as throwing knives and bullets ricocheted against the floor and ceiling. Dust swirled in phantom gusts as bodies moving faster than the eye can track clashed again and again.
Shino and Kiba were still, staring. Their minds filled with flashes of the last time they'd seen a friend covered in so much of their own blood, freezing them for a second. Both boys began panicking, only their training moving them to action.
The pair rushed to Hinata as she unsealed her medkit with one hand. Kiba took over, pulling a topical painkiller airhypo and injecting it into the flesh on the heart side of the wound. Shino pulled a bandage from the pack and pressed it to Hinata's shoulder, wrenching another scream from her throat.
"Coagulant, stimulant, immobilization. Coagulant, stimulant, immobilization." Shino chanted, pulling a can of fast setting spray cast from the medkit while Kiba pulled two more airhypos.
Kurenai and the vampire lady appeared near the center of the room, the jonin holding the vampire's hands, keeping the gun pointed in a 'safe' direction.
The vampire hissed and its mouth opened. Plates pulled back and away to reveal two injector fangs, seemingly too big to fit in the space they had occupied. The vampire lunged in for a bite, but its head slammed back.
Hinata gritted her teeth, realigning her sights with the vamp's skull.
With a hiss, the vampire righted its head, flecks of lead sparkling where the bullet had pinged off her dermal plating. "You shall regret that, little lamb." The vampiric woman hissed.
Then the vampire and the jonin were once again in motion at speeds the genin couldn't follow.
Interview Room 8
"Tell me, Genin Nara, why did you become a Ninja?" Jonin Sarutobi asked.
Shikamaru shrugged, "Seemed like the thing to do."
"I'm sure. Fourth child of a clan head, male, intelligent. You could have done well as a researcher, a teacher, hell, even a stay at home father if that was your cup of tea, but you became a ninja. Certainly, there would have been a little pressure from your family, but two of your three older sisters are already shinobi, so it's not like your clan lacks future prospects.
"So, why, Genin Nara, are you sitting across from me, instead of getting a degree and joining the ranks of your cousins in our research and design divisions?"
Shikamaru… didn't have an answer. It just—he just—there was never a choice. At no point in his life had Shikamaru thought, 'maybe I could do something else, instead of becoming a ninja.' Not seriously. He was one third of Ino-Shika-Cho, he was the son of Shikaku Nara, Jonin Commander. He… was a ninja. He couldn't be anything else.
"Genin Nara." Jonin Sarutobi's voice was softer now, "Let me tell you what I see, when I look at all of this." The jonin gestured to the papers scattered around a desk, "I see a young man who, for all his complaining, for all his propensity for laziness, manoeuvres himself to be in the position to best help his friends and loved ones before they even realize they need help.
"I see a young man with a quick mind and a talent for Yin ninjutsu who was never given a true challenge, who was never rewarded for trying, like so many smart people aren't." There was a beat of silence.
"My father has revised the Ninja Academy curriculum twice in his time as Hokage. Before he did that, guys like you would fall through the cracks… Did you know that the Nara actually had their own schoolhouse fifty years ago? At the time, if most Nara had gone into the academy, they'd have flunked out due to your clan's general ineptitude when it comes to taijutsu.
"I mean, you still didn't learn the academy katas, because they'd be useless to someone with such a high Yin affinity. The Yamanaka's can barely handle it as well…" The jonin trailed off.
Another moment of silence stretched between them.
When it seemed as if Jonin Sarutobi wasn't going to continue, Shikamaru spoke up, "So… what? Why say all this? You have enough evidence to send my entire class back to the academy, or get us pulled from the corps."
"Is that something you think would be in the best interest of the Leaf, Genin Nara? Is that your tactical analysis of the situation?"
"Of course not," Shikamaru snapped back, "Compared to the average graduating class, mine are better fighters, smarter tacticians, and more seamless infiltrators."
"Due, in no small part, to you." Asuma added, "Did you really think that your instructors just… missed that their entire class was occasionally cheating?" Jonin Sarutobi laughed mockingly, "Really, Genin Nara, you should have more respect for those around you."
Ninja Hospital Long Term Recovery, Room 3
Jonin Hatake pulled a scroll from one of the pouches on his flak jacket and opened it, "Satsuki Uchiha, you're charged with two counts of disobedience of a lawful command, one count of insubordinate behaviour, and one count of negligent performance of duty resulting in the death of an active Leaf shinobi.
"It is my duty as your commanding officer to present to you this warrant of arrest and to inform you that you are under house arrest until such time as the Hokage can see to your trial. The scroll will have all the details, but in brief, you're confined to these quarters except when your health requires you to be elsewhere, and when that happens you must always be accompanied by at least one ninja of higher rank."
Kakashi sighed, "Glad that's out of the way. Always hated doing 'official duties.'"
"You—you—YOU CAN'T DO THAT!" Naruko yelled.
Kakashi looked toward his blonde student, "Really? Ah, gomen, Hokage-sama, this one had not realized that he was in thine august presence. Truly, this one humbled that thou would visit."
"Stop making fun of me and take this seriously!" Naruko shook her head, her twintails whipping back and forth, "You can't just charge Satsuki after she died!"
"Ah, Hokage-sama—"
"Shut the hell up and explain!"
Sakura just stared, speechless.
"Alright, listen. Your teammate here went and did an oopsie whoopsie. A real fucky wucky. A wittle fucko boingo."
"Take this seriously!"
Jonin Hatake turned fully to Naruko and said in a low voice, "Believe me, girl, I am taking this exactly as seriously as it deserves. Satsuki Uchiha abandoned her mission and her comrades at the very first opportunity she could, after I explicitly laid out that doing so makes her less than scum. She is extremely lucky that the only person hurt by her stupidity was herself, because if either of you had been hurt as well, this would be a very different conversation."
Kakashi's relaxed and let out a breath, "But that didn't happen, so here we are." Kakashi turned back to Satsuki, "The fact of the matter is that while the Hokage himself will be overseeing your court-martial, the reality is a bit different. As a clan heir and a newly minted genin you get a lot more leeway when it comes to messing up, which is good and bad.
"It's good because the Hokage isn't going to summarily execute you like he did to the last person who got one of their allies killed because they neglected their duty. The bad news is that you don't have to convince the Hokage that you deserve a second chance. You have to convince me, and your clan head."
"My brother—"
"Agreed with me," Kakashi interrupted, "That—as the hurt parties—it would be up to Naruko and Sakura whether you get to keep your Leaf insignia."
"What?" Naruko shouted.
Sakura gave a sigh of relief.
Kakashi observed this with an impassive eye.
Naruko finally asked, "So… Satsuki gets to stay on the team?"
"If you want her to." Kakashi responded lightly.
"Of course we do! Right, Sakura?" The blue eyed girl looked over at Sakura for confirmation. Sakura nodded.
Satsuki looked between the two girls who she remembered as schoolmates, and not particularly close ones either—not that she'd say anyone in the academy was 'close.' What had happened in the two days she'd lost?
"I'm glad you two are so gung-ho about this. It means you'll be even more enthusiastic about this." With a flourish, Kakashi pulled a tangle of rope from the backpack that had been sitting inconspicuously on his back. He plopped the bundle down on Satsuki's bed, where the three genin stared at it.
"We're… going climbing?" Sakura guesses.
"Climbing the ladder of friendship, perhaps," Kakashi allowed, "Each of you, hand in the centre."
The three looked at their instructor oddly, but they all put their hands in and with a trio of clicks they each found one of their hands cuffed. The handcuff was attached to the rope pile. With a gasp they all pulled their hands away and the pile unravelled to reveal that, instead of one long rope, it was composed of three shorter ropes all connected to a central metal ring.
Pulling apart, the three genin found that they could put, at most, ten feet between themselves.
"What the hell, Kakashi?" Naruko asked, looking down at her wrist.
"Welcome, you three, to the patent pending Hatake Friendship School for The Fucking Clueless," Kakashi said far too cheerfully, "For the next six weeks you three are going to be getting very comfortable with each other."
"What? Why?" Naruko shouted the question, as if volume alone could convince her commanding officer to rethink what he was doing.
"Because the three of you have to actually learn to work as a team, to actually count on each other, and to learn the lesson I tried to teach you the first time. No one gets left behind, no one goes off alone, and no one abandons the mission without due cause.
"But, of course, if that's too much for you, there's a neat little way out." Kakashi's tone was too friendly. The three genin looked at each other, all of them silent. "Oh? Don't want to know? Well, it's simple. You'll all find a new piece of software sitting in your agents—no, Sakura, don't ask when I put them there, I'm not going to tell you. This nifty little application keeps track of how far apart you are, and will give you a little alert and a countdown if you go out of bounds. Let that countdown expire and you fail."
The three absorbed this information. It was Naruko who asked, "Then what's the rope for?"
Kakashi smiled behind his mask, "Think of it as… symbolic. Those aren't even actual handcuffs. There's a little button on the side that opens them." The genin looked more closely at the handcuffs connecting them and saw that he was telling the truth.
With a click, Naruko's cuff fell open. The other three people in the room stared at her. She stared back, "What? I'm not taking it off! I'm not that dumb! It was just on weird!" As if to convince them of the truth of her words, Naruko snapped the cuff back on, though turned slightly.
"... Right. The rules are simple. For the next six weeks, the three of you are going to be an actual team. You will sleep together, you will train together, and you will spend your leisure time—what little of it you'll have—together. When you eat, you will do so from the same bowl, with the same set of chopsticks. When you shower, you will either do so together or with the other two guarding you as if this were a field exercise. The same goes for using the bathroom."
The three genin twitched. The rules for field exercises were that at least one person had to be able to see you at all times. All. Times. Even if they had seen it eventually—in seduction training—it was never comfortable to see the people you grew up with naked, or taking a crap in the woods.
"But hey, if that's too much for you, I gave you an out. That little piece of software comes with exactly one UI (user interface) element. A little 'I give up' button. All that needs to happen for this to end is any one of you pressing it. You press it and I give my recommendation that Satsuki gets pulled from the corps.
"She goes off to become someone's doting wife, and we wait for Itachi to pull his head out of his ass and get himself a wife and heir. The two of you are down a member for your team, but we'll probably get a replacement around the time of the next chunin exams, so it's not a major setback."
"What?" Naruko voiced the outrage for all of them, but Kakashi could see the shock on Sakura's face and the narrow eyed hostility on Satsuki's, "What about never abandoning your comrades?"
Kakashi's grey eye flicks to meet Naruko's blue, "Tell me, Naruko, when Genin Nara forced you to quit the battlefield, was he forcing you to abandon Satsuki?"
Naruko snarled, "He was."
"No." The man said with finality, "He was preserving as many lives as he could in a situation where, had he done nothing, there'd be three dead genin instead of one."
Naruko deflated slightly, "We could have taken him."
"Like you were able to take me?"
Naruko didn't answer.
"Never abandon your comrades isn't an invitation for you to throw your life away. You do your best, but in the end, your life is just as valuable as any other. You are your own comrade, after all. Would you trade Sakura's life for Satsuki's?"
"I…" Naruko looked away.
"No, you wouldn't. Show yourself the same courtesy." Kakashi clapped his hands, "Now, are my terms acceptable, or not?"
Eventually, the three agree, and they begin preparations for a month and a half of suffering.
The Bodukkan Autonomous Levelling Plate, Material Storage 12
Jonin Kurenai Yuhi slowly pulled her combat knife out of the vampire's eye socket. The battle had been more difficult than she had expected, with the unusual task of needing to keep three other people alive.
The screaming Hinata was doing wasn't helping either, though Kurenai couldn't blame the girl, the gunshot wound looked quite bad.
The knife was cleaned off on the coat the vampire's corpse was wearing before returning to its sheath. Turning, Kurenai assessed the situation. Kiba and Shino were on either side of Hinata, who was laid on the floor. A thick crust of hardening white foam encasing her shoulder. The girl's eyes were half-lidded as the painkillers kicked in.
Kiba appeared to be distressed, Akamaru making little whining noises next to him as the boy huffed out his breath.
Shino was harder to read, but the boy appeared to be keeping his calm. "Genin Aburame, medical assessment." Kurenai ordered.
The boy's mind snapped back into the present, "Minimal internal and external bleeding. The Acromial bone lost a chunk and the clavicle was broken at the tip. No immediate danger."
"Are either of you carrying a stretcher?" Kurenai asked, knowing they weren't.
The pair shook their heads.
"There's one in the back of my car." Kurenai ejected the car key shard from her neck port and held the chip out to them, but didn't comment further.
After a second, Kiba jumped up, grabbed the chip, and rushed out of the room.
Kurenai turned to Shino, "You're the tactician, what do you do wrong?"
Shino stopped and thought for a moment. "We didn't anticipate a high level combatant."
"You assumed your intel was correct. Even from other ninja, info isn't always correct."
"I didn't see them." Hinata said from her place on the ground.
"You shouldn't be talking." Shino insisted.
"I'm ok." Hinata retorted softly, "I don't feel any pain, and I'm not moving my shoulder.
"You're also going to want to keep your head still." Kurenai supplied.
"Ok," Hinata half whispered.
"They must have been out of range." Shino hypothesized.
"No, I just didn't look." Hinata made an abortive movement that would have been a shake of her head, "I only looked at this room, I didn't look further."
"Right, poor information, we need more information next time."
"More than that." Kurenai added.
"Right." Shino squinted at the middle distance, "We also… are poorly armoured?"
"You are, but I'm not wearing all that much more armour than you are. Tell me, Shino, how does a ninja kill someone?"
Shino blinked owlishly behind his dark sunglasses, "By shooting them?"
"By assassinating them. Ideally in a manner that leaves no trace of our passing."
Shino nodded, but didn't seem to get what she was trying to teach him.
"So why, Shino Aburame, was your plan of attack to breach and clear a room full of fifteen enemy combatants?"
"… Well, the enemy had fortified their position. The flashbang and smoke, along with the sedative, made them easier targets."
"That's correct, but do you know what's an even easier target? A singular vampire or thrall out hunting, or buying food, or taking a piss, or doing a thousand other things that would take them out of this 'fortified location.'" Kurenai looked around, she wouldn't exactly call the storage room 'fortified.' Mostly, it just had bags of concrete powder stacked in such a way that anyone hiding behind them would have a clear line of fire to the only door into the room.
Shino stood, "But they would not have left. Why? Because they had recently kidnapped a girl. They had no need to hunt again so soon."
"Come now, Shino, I know I taught you better than this, or have you already forgotten your genjutsu classes? Make them restless, make them irritable, make them claustrophobic. There are a dozen light genjutsu that could have been used in this situation."
"But what if they didn't work?" Hinata asked quietly. "We might run out of time if we try everything from safety…"
"Miss Hyuuga, how much time did we have to complete this mission?"
Hinata realized that she must have said something wrong, but answered anyway, "A day."
"Are you sure about that?" Kureanai asked in the way that teachers do when you've given the wrong answer, and they want you to know it before they reveal that it's wrong. Or sometimes just to fuck with you when you've gotten the right answer.
"Yes." Hinata was quite sure that the mission stated that it was for two people for one day.
"Incorrect, miss Hyuuga. There was no time limit on the mission."
"But the mission is for one day, is it not?" Shino tilted his head slightly in confusion.
"You're being paid for one day of work."
"Yes." Shino agreed.
"Shino, honey, sweetie, just because the mission says that two chunin should be able to do the job in a day doesn't mean you have to try to do the same. Is your family really so hard up for money that they need your contributions?"
Shino straightened indignantly, "The Aburame clan is doing quite well."
Kurenai smiled at the boy, "So, would it matter if you took longer than you needed to in order to finish this mission?"
"Ah… I see what you are trying to say. We do not need to complete missions quickly unless there is an explicit time limit. We could have taken an entire week to do this mission. Why? Because it would have made no difference to our families, as they are not relying on genin to provide monetary value to the clan."
The sound of Kiba's sandals slamming into concrete announced his return long before he burst through the door carrying the stretcher; a contraption consisting of two collapsible plastic poles and a flexible plastic sheet.
Kiba quickly unfolded the poles, sliding them through the sleeves on the long sides of the sheet, and laid it down next to Hinata.
The two boys paused then, looking at their teacher. Kurenai nodded down to Hinata, "Finish the mission."
"Right!" Kiba barked, "You grab the bottom." He told Shino, and the pair began carrying the girl out of the massive machine beneath the arts centre.
As they walked, Kurenai continued her lesson, "It's imperative that you learn this as quickly as possible. You must assess and reassess the situation as it evolves, prioritizing survival at every step. Did Iruka ever go over the rules for abandoning missions?"
"What are you guys talking about?" Kiba asked, "You're never supposed to abandon missions."
Kurenai sighed again, what was she going to do with these children, "That was true during wartime, when missions were handed out by the Hokage's office, rather than by clients. That isn't the case anymore. You have to remember that there's now a monetary value associated with your death. We know, down to the singular ryo, how much it costs for one of you to die."
Kurenai disliked talking like this. They'd finally put a solid price tag on a human life. This world was going to shit.
"The official policy is that if we have to expend more than half of what we're being paid to complete a mission, then the mission is considered void. So, for example, if you had decided that you couldn't do this mission without that specialty poison that Shino mentioned, then the mission is void. Because that poison cost far more than fifty percent of what you're being paid for this mission.
"Now, extend that logic to a mission you think will require one of you to die."
The three are silent for a few moments, before Hinata spoke up, "Sixty chunin."
"What's that?" Kiba asked.
"The mission would have to pay enough to hire sixty chunin for it to be within bounds to complete the mission at the expense of a life."
Kurenai nodded, "And that's just the raw cost of revival. You also have to remember the opportunity cost of you being out of work for the recovery time, any experience you lost from losing any memories since your last backup, and equipment costs for any equipment or cyberware that's damaged or destroyed when you die. We worked it out once, out of morbid curiosity.
"The number we eventually settled on was enough to pay for half a dozen jonin to tackle whatever problem the fresh-from-the-academy-genin died for. So, the equivalent of an expedited S-class mission. That's what your lives are worth at this very moment, and every single day they become more valuable.
"So the next time you think that taking things slow isn't worth your time, remember that. Staying alive is orders of magnitude more important than completing a C-—or even B-—class mission. I know you're all teenagers and taking an entire day to clear out a vamp nest sounds like a hassle, but the real hassle is the fact that one of your members is going to be laid up for the next week. Treat yourselves like the valuable tools that you are.
"Even if you're technically not irreplaceable, you're still very expensive."
With that last bit of advice, the four got into Kurenai's car, piling in as best they could. Hinata ended up lying across the back seat, her legs scrunched up in Kiba's lap. Akamaru ended up in the footwell next to her head, panting into her face. Kurenai and Shino had both brought their chairs as far forward as they could to give them extra room.
The dark car drove off, the neon lights of the sky-crawling advertisements warring with the light of the setting sun as day slowly flowed into night.
Interview Room 8
"Did you truly believe that your teachers would catch you cheating once and then not be on guard for it happening again?" Asuma pulled a smaller stack of pink papers from the bag at his feet. "I'll admit, some of these are quite clever. Having your classmates wear light emitting clothes, sabotaging the ceiling lights in the exam room the day before, keeping your shadow to the lines between tiles so it just looked as if the grout was dirty.
"I particularly liked how you handled the situation with Mr. Aburame's stalker. Having Ms. Haruno and Ms. Uchiha create chakra shell clones of the entire class, while you and Ms. Yamanaka sabotaged the surveillance system. Your work was a little sloppy on that one, though. Your teachers had noticed your group was planning something larger than normal and alerted academy security in advance. Even if they didn't, the ninja police found the sabotage almost immediately."
Shikamaru was stunned. For a few moments, he just sat there, staring at the jonin across from him. "Then why…" He couldn't even ask.
"Why let you continue?" Asuma asked for him, "To what end? Your teachers could always tell when the other students in the class had used you to cheat, so it didn't affect their grades. The situation with Mr. Aburame resolved itself without anyone dying or being permanently injured."
Asuma gestured as if to present everything in front of him, "The only thing that stopping you would have done was take away the one part of your education that you actually seemed to put effort into.
"In fact…" Asuma pulled out another sheet of paper. Really, how much paper did this guy need to waste on this? Paper isn't cheap, you know, considering how dangerous it is to do logging in the Forest of Death. "A quote from one of your teachers, 'We noticed a marked increase in Mr. Nara's class participation when another of his classmates was doing poorly. This was further reinforced when noted slacker Ms. Uzumaki would pester him to do her homework. It was decided that whenever we thought Mr. Nara was slacking particularly hard, or we had a lesson we thought was important, we'd make it seem as if one of his classmates grades would suddenly dip.'"
"What?" Shikamaru was incredulous, "They'd put them through all that stress just to make me do something?"
Asuma chuckled darkly, "Boy, threatening someone's loved ones is perhaps the oldest motivation tactic in the book. You know that."
Shikamaru clenched his fists, "So… what is this, then?"
"A wake-up call." Asuma leaned back in his chair, "Do you know why Satsuki Uchiha failed to follow your orders?"
"Because she's a glory seeking bitch?" Shikamaru bit out.
"Because she didn't respect you." Asuma fired back, "Because she doesn't think you deserve to be able to command her, because you never bothered to put any effort in, unlike she, who has worked her ass off day and night since… well, since you-know-what happened. Why, then, should she listen to anything you have to say?"
"That's not how command works." Shikamaru said lowly.
"Isn't it? You really think people are going to fight for you, die for you, because you happen to be in charge? Do you want to know what happens to commanders that aren't respected by their troops? They're ignored, when push comes to shove. When the chips are down, the troops will follow someone they trust, someone they respect, before they'll follow a lazy commander who won't bother to pick up a weapon."
"I fight alongside my team!" Shikamaru insisted, "I don't leave my friends out to dry."
"You don't." Asuma acknowledged, "However," And now he brought out another piece of paper, "'Mr. Nara has a tendency of forfeiting any fight he feels is pointless, or when he believes that he has lost. Mr. Nara refuses to fight seriously against stronger opponents outside team encounters. Mr. Nara has stated that 'fighting against any of them (referring to Ms. Uzumaki, Ms. Uchiha, and Mr. Inuzuka) is pointless, since I'll lose.'"
"Which makes perfect sense," Shikamaru argued, "Since fighting them is just a waste of energy. Kiba and Naruko are rush down fighters, and I can't defend against that, especially with Akamaru as part of it, and Satsuki with her sharingan is complete bullshit to fight against, there's no point."
Asuma stayed silent for a moment, before saying, "Are you done making excuses?"
"They aren't excuses!" Shikamaru insisted, "In a real combat situation, I'd avoid fighting someone I know I can't win against, obviously."
"And when you can't complete the mission without doing so?"
"Then I either find a way to weaken them enough to be able to defeat them, or I cancel the mission, I'm not like the other idiots in my class, I know you're allowed to drop missions you don't think you can complete."
"… You're right, in a real combat situation, you should never engage with an opponent you don't think you can defeat." Asuma leaned forward, a shadow falling over his eyes, "But tell me, Genin Nara, what part of 'training' and 'sparring' do you not understand?"
Shikamaru opened his mouth, but Asuma pressed on, "Nothing, apparently. A young man as smart as you should know that the fastest way to improve yourself is to test yourself against opponents of greater skill than you, or is that little tidbit of information something you missed?"
The silence hung between them.
Eventually, Asuma spoke, "Genin Nara, I'm not here to accuse you of cheating in the academy; as you can see, your teachers were well aware of it. I bought it up to make a point, one I'm sure you've already figured out, but let me spell it out for you, just in case.
"If you keep going the way you're going, not treating this seriously, not training, and assuming that you'll never encounter a situation you can't somehow think your way out of or run away from, you're going to lose people. Satsuki Uchiha died while under your command because she didn't respect you.
"You other classmates? They might like you, but do they respect you? Do they think that, when the chips are down, you're actually going to step up to bat for them? When the time comes, do they think you'll try to pull them out of the fire, or do they worry you'll leave them to die?"
"I wouldn't let any of them die." Shikamaru insisted, even as his heart clenched and whispered, 'yes you would.'
"You let Satsuki die."
"I couldn't save her!" Shikamaru slammed his hands down on the table, standing so fast the flimsy plastic chair clattered to the floor behind him. "I could barely get Naruko and Sakura away from that madman."
"You were weak!" Asuma followed Shikamaru's example, standing so the two men were eye to eye, "You've always been weak, always ready to let someone else do the hard work while you go off and take a nap, and now someone's died because of your laziness!"
"Don't you think I know that?" Shikamaru almost begged.
"Do you?" Asuma growled, "What have you done to remedy it? Have you sought out your old teachers? Have you trained at all since that day? Have you even bothered to clean and maintain your equipment since then?"
He hadn't. Shikamaru had done his best to not think about that incident for the last three days.
Asuma stood fully straight, "I think this interview has come to an end, Genin Nara. I hope that I've given you something to think about. I'll leave you with the questions that Guy suggested that I ask at the beginning. What is it that you think you need to learn, from me, or anyone else? What is it that you want out of being a Ninja, and how do you think you can reach that goal?
"But most importantly, what's it worth to you? Are you willing to put in the time and effort to get what you want? Think on that, and send Ino in on your way out."
Shikamaru had no words. Slowly, he turned from the table and began walking from the room. Then, Asuma spoke again, "Also, Genin Nara."
Shikamaru turned to look at the jonin.
"I win." With one final move, Asuma won the board game that Shikamaru had forgotten about, breaking his win streak in a move that Shikamaru would later think was a bit petty of the older man.
Shikamaru exited the room more emotionally and physically exhausted than he'd been, perhaps ever. Ino and Choji are in the waiting room, each doing their own thing, "Ino, you're next." Shikamaru said lifelessly.
The pair looked up at him, both in concern.
"You… you alright, Shika?" Chouji asked.
"Yeah… Yeah, I'm just going to… go home, maybe take a nap…" Shikamaru shuffled out the door, not hearing his two oldest friends calling out to him.
Episode 2: End
Ending Theme: Past Mistakes by Goo Goo Dolls
Footnotes:
1: Mantis Blades
Shino Aburame on mantis blades:
Mantis blades are a common cybernetic augmentation for members of my clan. Why? Two reasons, I think. The first is that they fit with our 'bug' theme. Research has indicated that 'staying on theme' has a small but noticeable effect on the potency of various techniques, much like shouting the technique's name.
The second reason is that Aburame have tended toward mantis blades long enough that the Aburame taijutsu has changed to better suit the use of them, which pushes more members of my clan to get them, causing a feedback loop.
Overall, mantis blade cybernetics are an effective close range weapon, particularly against lightly armoured opponents, which is fine, considering we tend to use our kikaichu on more heavily armoured opponents anyway.
2: Chakra, Physics, and the Gentle Fist
From A Hyuuga's Introduction to Chakra Physics:
Much like an electron, Physical Energy, Mental Energy, Natural Energy, and Unnatural/Demonic Energy exists as both a particle and wave within a probability field.
This means that when one of the four E's passes through not-empty space, there's a fixed chance that it will impact with an atom. The exact numbers are covered later in this text, but in order to visualize it you may think of it like this:
Much like unstable elements have a half-life, Meta Energy has a half distance.
Physical Energy half distance 2cm/0.75inch of concrete.
Mental/Spiritual Energy half distance 400cm/157in of solid concrete.
These distances are affected by the density of the object it's passing through, higher density means shorter halving distance and certain Meta Charged Materials can reflect Meta Energy.
Now, what happens to the energy that doesn't make it through the object? Well, multiple things:
- The energy can be absorbed by the atom's meta-field—the field of energy which keeps the atom 'real' by enforcing the laws of physics in that area.
- The energy can transform into heat energy, raising the 'temperature' of the atom.
- The energy can transform into static electricity in the electron field.
- The energy can transform into low to medium wavelength electromagnetic energy and be emitted as radio, infrared, or visible light waves.
- The energy can transform into directional kinetic energy, pushing the atom in the same direction the energy was moving before encountering the atom.
Now, an interesting interaction comes from the Meta Energy Emulsion known as chakra. When Mental Energy and Physical Energy are mixed, they will take on a half distance between the two extremes based on the ratio of energies within the emulsion.
Add to this the ability for experienced and careful Meta Energy Users to change the interaction type of the energy even when the energy is outside their body (called Nature and Shape change), and you have some interesting actions which can be performed.
For example: Assume that a Meta Energy User Expels a finger sized column of Electricity aspected chakra (9:1 Mental to Physical ratio) at a person. If the user does not change the nature of the energy, you would expect it to pass through the person with nearly no interaction. The person likely wouldn't even notice it.
Now, assume the user makes two changes to the energy. They first direct the mental energy to be absorbed by atoms it encounters. Then they instruct the mental energy to move away from the column in all directions.
This leaves us with a column of Earth aspected chakra (1:9 Mental to Physical ratio) within the person.
Let us assume that the user changes the nature of the remaining chakra to that of imparting kinetic energy to atoms it encounters. If the chakra was moving fast enough, it could impart a similar amount of energy to that of a high speed gunshot.
What we have just described is how a Meta Energy User could 'shoot' someone. They could do this over extreme range, through solid walls, allies, enemies, armour, etc.
What we have described is one of the most powerful and most difficult Gentle Fist techniques, the Discerning Bullet.
But from the example, you begin to understand how both the Byakugan and the Gentle Fist work. By manipulating the interaction between chakra and the physical world, much can be achieved!
Author's Note:
Due to lack of reader engagement I've decided to put this fic on hiatus. If there's a sudden uptick in comments I'll consider continuing to make a unique edit for FF, but until then the story continues in its original format on AO3.