"Kami above and demons below, will you three stop wittering at me?!" Inoue asked, throwing her hands in the air. "Yes, yes, questions! Gah! Use your own common sense sometimes! Civilians don't know crap about jutsu beyond the most basic, so no matter what you throw they aren't going to recognize it. You don't want to throw them around just to show off, because doing so leaks information about your capabilities, but using them for a valid purpose is fine. If you take the attitude 'I must never use jutsu for fear of outing myself' then you're just crippling yourself. If you have that attitude it will make you hesitate when you actually need to use them, and increases your odds of ending up dead."
"But sensei, what if other ninja come along and question—" Mori started.
"Yes, and what if my hair was made of green spinach?" Inoue snapped. She took a deep breath and visibly made herself calm down. "Look, Mori, I get it: you're nervous because you're not used to be missing-nin. That's sensible, but you can take it too far. There's really very little difference between being a missing-nin and being on a long-term assignment in enemy territory: there are enemy ninja who want to kill you and your information is available in the bingo books. As a missing-nin some of those enemy ninja are from your own village, but that doesn't really change the overall situation. Don't use jutsu gratuitously, but use whatever you need to use when it makes sense to use it. The one exception is that once you start to acquire a reputation you want to think about how you use your signature moves. For example, if you come across the aftermath of a ninja battle and there are some giant-toad footprints, most likely Jiraiya was involved. That can be a thing you want to use sometimes, as a psychological weapon. On the other hand, sometimes you want to keep those moves hidden so as to conceal who you are. It's relative."
"But what about our bloodlines? Those are distinctive, and—"
"Yes, okay, fine," Inoue said. "That's true. But it's not as bad as it seems. Mori, your bloodline isn't visible—it just looks like you have common sense. Yamada, yours isn't visible either—it just looks like you have an especially good kinesthetic sense. Wakahisa, your barrel is unusual but it really just looks like an oversized canteen. Don't try impressing the girls with your stretchy whip—or with your Water Whip jutsu—and you'll be fine."
"Thank you, sensei," Hazō said. "May I ask just one more question and then I'll let it go?"
Inoue sighed. "Yes, fine. What is it?"
"Well, you said that you wanted us to use common sense. Isn't it sensible to check with our sensei as to whether what we think is correct actu—"
"Arggggghh!" Inoue said, flicking the contents of her soup mug at him.
Hazō quickly kawarimied out of the way and vanished, laughing, into the village.
o-o-o-o
"Look, there's a lake right there," Wakahisa said dismissively. "How hard could it be to dig a ditch with a gate?"
The villagers looked at each other. The look was complicated; the basis of it was a look that all three genin were uncomfortably familiar with from their time at the Academy: 'oh look, a genin who thinks he knows something, how cute, what an idiot'. The other was more along the lines of 'so...who wants to bell the cat?'
Finally one of the oldsters spoke up. "You are entirely correct about that, sir," he said, bowing deeply. "Digging the ditch and putting a gate on it is very easy; you are most wise. We would be very grateful for any insights you might offer on the design of the gate, however. I'm afraid that multiple generations of this village have failed to come up with a design that will admit water but keep out the poisonous jumping spinefish, the water bugs, the stingweed, or several other denizens of the lake. There is also one other small matter—insignificant for a ninja, I feel certain, but somewhat challenging for mere civilians: the land slopes up quite steeply from the lake shore, making it difficult to bring the water up. Until now we have diverted water from the river on the edge of the forest, but perhaps there is a better solution that will use the water in the lake. Could you please enlighten us?"
"Oh," said Wakahisa, blushing.
"I could have told you that," Mori muttered quietly.
o-o-o-o
"We don't typically use barrels here, I'm afraid," the potter said apologetically. He was in the middle of spinning clay on a treadle-operated wheel. He paused to dip water onto his hands in order to keep the clay moist. "There is a great deal of clay, but gathering substantial amounts of wood is dangerous for us."
"Oh," said Wakahisa, blushing.
"Okay, I didn't see that one," Mori muttered quietly.
o-o-o-o
"Nice workmanship," Inoue said, studying the spearheads. "You do good work, Fukio." She still wore her genin disguise and was careful not to sound too authoritative.
The smith bowed. "Thank you," he said politely. An observer might have thought it odd how respectful the forty-something professional was to a twelve-year-old girl. Granted, it would have required the theoretical observer to have grown up under a rock and somehow never heard the word 'ninja', but it was theoretically possible.
Inoue vanished the bag of a dozen spearheads into her sealing scroll—the one scroll that she had allowed the villagers to see. "Yamada-sensei has decided we're going to hunt out the local wildlife in the forest," she said. "He said"—her voice dropped into the best approximation of Hazō's henged-up adult voice that a twelve-year-old girl could manage—"'It will make things safer for the village, put a lot of meat in the pot, give us some trade goods, and give you three idiots some combat experience.'" She flashed him an urchin grin and dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Yamada-sensei has been dodging having a team assigned ever since he became a jōnin. He was most upset when our leader finally insisted."
The smith laughed. "When I was an apprentice, my master used to talk the same way to me," he said. "I would like to believe that he would be proud of my skill today, and I have no doubts that Yamada will be just as proud of you."
"Thank you, Fukio," Inoue said with a bow. "What can you tell us about the local area? Is there anything in particular you'd like us to look for? Anything we shouldn't bother bringing in, or should definitely bring in?"
"Ah, well," said the smith, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "There's the waterbugs, of course, but those are in the lake and you already know about them. In the forest you've got the voles—they can tunnel through the ground almost as fast as I can walk, and they like to leap out at their prey, or collapse the ground under you to bring you down to them. One of them isn't too dangerous; they'll give you a nasty bite, but that's it. Unfortunately, they travel in packs. If you could make a point of cleaning them out it would be much appreciated. Then there's the mindbirds; they have some sort of genjutsu ability that will leave a man standing, staring and stupid, while they eat his eyes. Then there's the dire rabbits—careful with those ones, they've got a mean streak a mile wild and have a Lightning Element power that lets them become lightning for a moment—and the hedgehogs with the toxic spikes. Don't worry about those too much; the spikes only have a range of ten or twenty feet, and the 'hogs move slow. Oh, and of course there's the wolves."
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Inoue raised her eyebrows. "And what is their horrible power?" she asked.
The smith shrugged. "Nothing, they're just wolves. Not everything has horrible chakra powers."
Inoue chuckled. "You caught me, Fukio," she said. "Anything else?"
"Well, there's the black hunter," Fukio said. "No one knows what it is; sometimes people have seen a flicker of movement in the woods, but that's it. Those that turns around and run the other way usually make it out alive as long as they drop whatever they're carrying. Those that do anything else generally don't come back."
"Ah," Inoue said. "Well, that sounds like fun. Thank you, Fukio, I very much appreciate the briefing."
"You are most welcome," he said. "Please, whatever you want from my stock, take it. I cannot describe how grateful we are to your team; if there is anything I can make for you, I would be happy to."
Inoue bowed. "You are most generous," she said. "I will talk with my team." She gave him a final smile before departing.
o-o-o-o
Wakahisa walked carefully around the edge of the lake, stepping carefully across the still surface of the water. Blood leaked from the soles of his feet, drifting into the the lake in curls.
The water erupted in a flash of light that turned the surface of the lake into a circle of dazzling rainbows for yard around. The patterns shifted and shimmered beneath him; he ignored it, continuing to pace forward across the surface, until the giant insect rose up behind him and pounced on his back, chelicerae scissoring closed in a powerful bite that snipped his head neatly off.
At which point Wakahisa collapsed in a puddle of water, leaving a very surprised lake monster tumbling down.
It hadn't even reached the surface when a storm of ninja-wired weaponry and a lash of water came flying from a clump of reeds on the shore and utterly obliterated the creature.
"Mine!" crowed Wakahisa.
"My kunai arrived first," Mori said, calmly pulling in the ninja-wire to retrieve her kunai. "Therefore, credit for this kill is mine."
"No way!" Wakahisa said. "I totally smashed it! Your kunai just stabbed it a little. And anyway, I hit first."
"Sensei?" Hazō asked.
"Decision to Wakahisa," Inoue said with a smile. "The kunai hit first and probably would have done it, but the water whip was there only a fraction of a second later. It landed before the creature would have died and made absolutely certain."
"Yes!" Wakahisa shouted, pumping his arm...only to stop with an abashed look as Mori glared at him and then stalked off around the lake, kunai in hand and a murderous glint in her eye.
Inoue chuckled. "You're losing three to two, and I think she's going to be a little more certain with the next one," she said. "You'll need to step up your game, kid."
Hazō looked at the sun and sighed. As a close-combat specialist, hunting the lake monsters was remarkably boring for him. Ah well, at least he could tease Wakahisa.
"Don't worry, Wakahisa-kun," he said with a smile and a pat on the shoulder. "At least your drain lets you spot them for us. Well, sort of. I mean, when you aren't just noticing large patches of kelp. I'm sure that was only a one-time thing, though. I mean, it's a little unusual to be having performance issues at your age, but I'm sure it's not a hint of future trouble."
"Piss off," Wakahisa grumbled, setting off after Mori.
o-o-o-o
"Problem solved, folks," Wakahisa said, dumping the half-dozen water bug shells in a pile. "We killed a lot more than this, but most of them the water was too deep for us to get the shell back." He puffed out his chest and gestured to himself with one thumb. "No match for a ninja, after all!"
"Thank you," Mariko said, bowing. "This is tremendously helpful. I've made some prawns and noodles with fish eggs; may I offer you some?"
o-o-o-o
Hazō was on point with kunai in each hand; Wakahisa took slack with his water whip already deployed. Mori was third, in the most protected position, and Inoue rode drag. Their sensei looked altogether too amused for Hazō's comfort; the genin's hair had been on metaphoric end for the past ten minutes as he stretched his every sense, looking for the slightest threat before advancing one more cautious step into the forest. He eased around a tree, glancing up to make sure there was no horrible eyeball-eating monster in the branches, and screamed shrilly when the ground collapsed under him, dropping him up to his thighs in the earth. Before he could react, chisel-like teeth were ripping chunks out of his calves and thighs.
Chakra surged into his legs, propelling him on a gibbering four-meter leap straight up. One of the voles was latched on hard enough that it came with him, but it was dead by the time Hazō landed, having been stabbed in the head nine or ten panic-filled times.
The voles came boiling up out of the earth, chittering and squeaking in fury at being deprived of their meal. A furious (and, frankly, still recovering from being terrified) Hazō danced through the middle of their ranks, kunai flashing with Iron Nerve precision. From behind him came a hail of kunai and senbon from Mori and a cracking Water Whip from Wakahisa. The voles were dead in seconds.
"Agh!" Hazō said, kicking one of the corpses so hard it bounced off a tree twenty feet away. "Damnit!"
"Let me see," Inoue said, moving forward. She cut the legs of his trousers open with two precise flicks of a kunai so that she could see the wounds.
She studied them for a moment with a grim expression, then looked him dead in the eye. "Hazō...I'm sorry. I'm afraid you're going to die."
Hazō went pale. Behind him, Mori and Wakahisa caught their breath.
"D-die?" he said, cursing himself for the way his voices caught on the word.
Inoue nodded. "Yep." She paused. "It's going to be slow, too...probably somewhere between ten and fifty years. Depends on how good a ninja you become after you heal from this."
Hazō stared at her, mouth hanging open. "You—! Agh!" He shook both fists threateningly but knew better than to actually try to belt her, the way he would have if one of his teammates had played the same trick.
Inoue laughed. "Don't worry, kid, you'll be fine. Stiff and sore and you're going to have some sexy scars to show the girls, but you'll be fine. It's going to slow you down some, though, so be careful. Oh, and, a tip? Tell the girls that you got the scars defending a young woman you were escorting. Chicks dig scars, but honorable and protective ninja are like catnip." She tipped him a bawdy wink and pulled out a basic medkit.
o-o-o-o
Being on point while wounded was miserable according to Hazō, but 'good training' according to Inoue-sensei. Unfortunately, since Inoue-sensei assigned march order, Hazō remained on point despite his wounds. It hurt to walk, it hurt to sit, it hurt to do basically anything. As the day wore on he began to fancy himself something of a connoisseur of the pain and the subtlety of its many shades. There was the constant dull ache with which his body urged him to be more careful in the future. There was the sharp tearing pain that reminded him not to stretch his right leg too far or he'd tear his sutures. There was the mind-blanking shriek of pain when he put any weight on the carefully-bandaged divot in his left heel.
Inoue-sensei had been very clear: yes, she'd seen the attack coming and yes, she had deliberately let him walk into it because she'd judged it unlikely to be fatal. He took the lesson to heart, advancing slowly and carefully. If anything even remotely tweaked his awareness he would stop and survey the surroundings until he knew what it was. The extra care let the team shoot two mindbirds out of the trees before getting close enough for the birds' mind-spell to affect them.
The sun was halfway down the sky, the afternoon shadows getting long, and they were nearly back to the village when the other shoe dropped.
"Get back!" Inoue shouted, flickering forward past the team. "Back to the village, right now!" She vanished into the trees ahead. Before the team could respond there was the echoing boom! of an explosive tag, immediately followed by half a dozen more and then a single cataclysmic blast that shook the ground.
Hazō was opening his mouth to say something—he would never be sure what—when Mori moved past him as chakra-boosted speed, racing into the trees after her sensei and her idol, both of whom happened to be the same person. Her teammates cursed in sync and went after her.
They caught up to Inoue seconds later. She was standing on the edge of a blast site, absently rubbing her arm where flying splinters had grazed her.
The genin stared in amazement. Dozens of trees—some of them very large—had been knocked down, falling perpendicular to the radius of the crater so that they formed a berm around the edges. The crater itself was shallow but wide—perhaps thirty meters across but only a meter deep at the center.
Mori let out a breath of relief to see Inoue unhurt. "Sensei, what happened?"
"Whoever that was just put up a very large 'do not disturb' sign," Inoue murmured. A moment later, she turned to the team with a forbidding frown. "Also, a group of genin ignored their sensei's orders. Apparently because they really enjoy mucking out the village pigpens for the next few days, and being on half rations, bread and water only."