Bone and Blood (Naruto Quest)

I Want To Dance With Somebody

With the satisfying crack of a sonic boom, Tsubaki appreciated the tearing, biting shrapnel generated by her newest little experiment.

The Land of Storms was a decently big place, and with the ever-present rain and the heavily urbanized nature of Amegakure, there were vast areas where not a soul could be found in sight.

Thus, if an enterprising shinobi wanted to practice their best, most secret techniques away from prying eyes, one could simply take a quick jog out of the village and find a good empty spot to go wild.

That was Tsubaki's chosen solution to finding places to practice the Shikotsumyaku. It was kind of a pain in the ass, having to go out into the ass end of nowhere to train some of her most fun and interesting stuff. But she could pass off the jogging as part of her physical conditioning, and it's not like the trip actually took much time out of her day with how fast she could move on her own in friendly territory.

She casually walks towards the ruins of the poor tree which had served as her target dummy, noting the clean cuts and relative lack of splintering despite the tree's explosive end, before her trained eyes traced out the pattern that the razor-sharp shrapnel had traced across the ground and other nearby trees, which she dutifully began absorbing as she mulled over her thoughts.

She'd been doing that a lot as of late. She was pretty sure Satou would be making a crack about Tsubaki not hurting herself with all of that thinking, but she did plenty of thinking thank you very much.

Admittedly, most of it was dedicated towards training. Planning out the hours and days spent out in the rainy fields. For so long, so much of that time had been dedicated to the Dances.

Alone, in the rain, Tsubaki had relentlessly practice and drilled the techniques of the Shikotsumyaku. Who else could help? Her mother sure couldn't, and Tsubaki suspects she'd wouldn't want to, even if she asked. And anyone else couldn't be trusted to keep the secrets of the Shikotsumyaku. No one else could feel the way her bones sung, the way her chakra twisted alongside her body to shape and reinforce Tsubaki's gift, not just along her skeleton, but across her entire physiology.

It was a feeling that could never be put into a words, that couldn't ever be replicated no matter how many times someone drilled the Dances into their body.

At best, her mother could show her the scrolls, walk her through the diagrams... but only Tsubaki could bring the Dance to fruition.

Not she'd needed much help to break down a taijutsu scroll. Not since she'd learned how to read anyway.

But now Tsubaki found herself facing a bridge she'd known she'd have to cross someday.

She'd learned all the Dances her mother had known. All the techniques her father had smuggled out of the clan alongside herself and her mother.

The Shikotsumyaku was rare. Rarer than rare, perhaps. Something that came about only once per generation, at best, and could go unseen for multiple generations at worst.

Statistically, no other user of the Shikotsumyaku would ever meet another user in their lifetime.

So of course, the more advanced techniques, the ones that could only ever be shown, and never described, would inevitably die with their user.

So many unique and varied techniques, so many interesting movements and manipulations. Gone. What a fucking waste.

Ah well. It just meant she'd be blazing her own trail. Nothing a little bit of work couldn't solve.

Like what Tsubaki was doing now.

She'd gotten a bit of inspiration from one of her past fights. Eaglery was proving to be a valuable jutsu, given that unlike most swordsmen, she could grow her own weapons on the fly if she ever exploded her own sword.

So why not try to turn those improvised explosions into premeditated ones instead? Well, she'd done that a few times, but she wanted to see if it could be made into a proper technique, maybe serve as a jumping off point for more advanced stuff.

She'd tried it first with the Nettle Dance, infusing it with Wind chakra the way she'd learned with Eaglery and Jet Propulsion, and the results had been... interesting? Maybe not entirely worth it, while she could regenerate from gouge wounds, it'd probably be worse for her in the end than the enemy... though the bone splinters could be an interesting angle?

Which led her to here, coating her phalanges in Wind Chakra to see if she could snag a bit more power out of the Storm Bullets.

Took a bit of concentrating to get it down pat, also a few broken fingers from the wind chakra going screwy, but that was par for the course really.

It was a work in progress, but it was an interesting avenue to take. Applying elemental transformations to the Dances....

Tsubaki heaved out an annoyed sigh.

Oh sure, it'd be effective. But well...

When would she get the chance to use it?

She'd kept her Kekkai Genkai a secret for all but a few glorious fights. And while she had little doubt she would get a decent fight again at some point in the near future...

Well, it was always a one and done. No rematches, no refining techniques, no chance to feel alive in a way that might actually last beyond a day.

She was a Dancer, but she lacked a partner to keep up with her.

It was... well, it was annoying. Super annoying, to spend all this time practicing and refining all of these cool techniques, only to never have a good chance to show them off to someone who could appreciate them.

And the one time you do find somebody who can keep up, it's your job to make sure they can't do it ever again.

... She wondered if was what Gunshomaru had felt. Why he'd helped find the Village Hidden in the Mist.

Maybe he'd gotten bored of the fights. That puppetry technique... isn't something that Tsubaki could imagine he made for combat. It'd be a complete pain in the ass to actually maintain over the course of a fight, and while it could theoretically end a fight with just a single good blow... that'd be boring as all hell.

Which meant that he'd probably made that technique just to control the clan for the Mizukage.

Tsubaki wondered why. What could make another user of the Shikotsumyaku be willing to go against the grain like that. Was the Mizukage that good of a Dance partner? Did he get the way that the Shikotsumyaku felt? How it wasn't just bones and Dancing, but something far more fundamental?

... Would Tsubaki ever had someone like that? Someone interesting enough to dedicate an entire Dance to? Someone she was willing to not fight for?

... Hanzo, maybe? But well, if Hanzo ordered her to not fight, to do something like Gunshomaru had done...

... Bah.

Tsubaki shook her head at her idle thoughts. Not a good idea to daydream when she trained.

Tsubaki hadn't reached that level yet. Not even close. That blonde boy who was probably from Konoha was still out there, as were those two Jinchuruki, and who knows how many opponents whom she had yet to match against.

She'd get her chance to Dance with them. And then, then is when this training would at last pay off.

But for now, she had more trees to explode.

The wide jounin screams and swears after you grab his outstretched fingers and twist. All of the digits, save the thumb, hang limply in the glove of his boilersuit when he pulls his hand away from you. "The hell is wrong with you?!" He shouts, his voice breaking audible even over the modulation provided by his rebreather.

His friend goes to draw the sword at his side but you plant your foot firmly on the pommel just as the steel clears the sheath. He sweeps your other leg, but you move to the side, locking your hand firmly around the hilt of his katana.

"You two idiots are the only reason anything went wrong on this simple mission," you say with a sneer, "so keep your heads down and return to the village, nobody's taking another order from you."

By now, the scarred jounin has given up on drawing his sword, and blazes through three hand seals. "Water Style: Rising Water Slicer," he intones, and razor-thin blades of water rise up under your feet. You're more than fast enough to dance around them, but your dodging puts you close enough to the wide jounin for him to seize you by the forearm and wrench the limb into a hammer-lock.

Your eyes go wide when you feel him actually force your arm into place, and the heat you feel through his boilersuit confirms your suspicions. You can recognize Hiroge taijutsu techniques and the physiological effects of the Kintenkan. "Hn," you begin impassively, "I'll have to apologize to Iori for this." Dislocating your shoulder is child's play at this point, and doing so enables you to drill his floating ribs with a very tight wheel kick. That lets you slip your arm out of his hand, as his grip loosens minutely, though it's still as tight as a vice. Relocating your shoulder is even easier than dislocating it, and you spin on your heel before driving a double tiger's mouth into his gut. It's a strike you know works on users of Kintenkan, with ten points of contact impacting their chakra-saturated muscles not causing more damage, but causing quite a bit of pain.

By now, the rest of the uninjured Ame-nin have gathered in a circle around you and the two older jounin. The bandaged jounin is watching the fighting most intently, but his gaze is analytical, unlike the jockeying crowd which seems to be betting on who will win. At least the odds are in your favor after breaking the wide one's fingers.

The scarred jounin has finally drawn his sword, and body flickers into your path, slashing horizontally at your neck. How rude, you haven't even used deadly force yet. And you can tell that it's deadly force given the man's stated opinion of your skills. At least proving him wrong will be satisfying, whatever comes of this. You catch his hands with one of yours and deftly pick three kunai from his kunai pouch. One is slipped into your sleeve as you flip away from the swordsman, while the other two are coated in Wind chakra when you have a moment away from their dogged pursuit. Instead of moving again, you plant yourself in a solid stance once Scars has reacquired you. This time, his attack is a downward swing, which you catch with your arms and Falconry-shrouded kunai like a pair of giant, whistling scissors.

All three blades explode when they connect with each other, it's a trick you're quickly becoming fond of. Despite being masked, the older shinobi flinches back from the shrapnel, while you remain in motion, heedless of the splinters of metal peppering your skin. As quickly as you discard the ruined knives, the last kunai you stole slips from your sleeves, and you shove it downward with an open palm. It finds its target in your opponent's knee, and you stomp it into the joint. The older jounin lets out a smothered scream, though you're distracted from knocking him out or otherwise finishing him off by the other jounin aiming a haymaker at your head.

You move to sweep the wide jounin's legs from the inside, but his chakra-enhanced muscles enable him to completely ignore the motion, and he drops directly onto your leg. You know it's supposed to hurt, so you grimace. Though on second thought, having your knee shredded probably warrants more than a grimace from most people, but you don't change your expression. When the big jounin topples you, leveraging his far greater mass, you end up landing on your back, and he slams the forearm of his injured hand into your throat.

The leg hock backfiring on you was your plan, but you didn't expect the big jounin to pin you down quite like this. "So you like crippling your fellow Ame-nin, huh? You little bi—"

Your 'injured' knee lashing out and spearing him in the groin is what cuts the bigger jounin off, and you can hear him wretching into his rebreather when you grab the device and twist his neck to force him off of you.

When you stand, completely steady on your feet, you deliver a quick heel kick to the back of the man's ankle, aiming for his achilles' tendon.

"Stay down," you advise the other jounin, the self-designated commander, with a steely glare. "You don't want to give the medics any unnecessary work," you glance that the bandaged jounin, and see him watching the scene impassively. "Looks like you'll still need someone to stay behind to help you back to Ame. What a shame."

He nearly struggles to his feet in an attempt to not remain kneeling, though his heavily injured knee forces him back down. "Your career is over, you upstart whelp, this is the last time you'll play at being a ninja," he growls at you.

The sensor from before, the jounin one, is the one who steps up and helps the man up, though he offers you a nod and you can see that the corners of his mouth are kinked up slightly. Another ninja helps up the other jounin, and the circle of interested shinobi begins to disperse.

Before turning and going on your way, you get the self-declared commander's attention with a curled finger. Disgust plain on your face, you answer his deluded comment with a barb of your own, "I don't even know who you are."


Arriving at the rendezvous point for your next mission is a welcome respite. An actual command structure being present presents so stark a difference that you actually breathe a sigh of relief once you get there. You almost anticipated news of what happened with the jounin on your other mission reaching this one first, despite the impossibility of that happening. This rendezvous point is more interesting than the last one, being a small valley in the shade of several dozen of the Land of Meadows' famous giant mushrooms.

Your official commander this time around is another older, grizzled jounin, but you've actually heard of this one.

Takanori Kamagiri is one of the few living Ame-nin who are actively hailed as a hero of the Second War, as the vast majority of those who share that distinction are interred in one of the village's looming mortuary towers. He's in his early fifties, old for a ninja, especially a jounin, still active in the field, there are even whispers that he was one of Lord Hanzo's soldiers in his civil war to seize control of the Land of Storms. Takanori's appearance matches his reputation, with leathery, weatherbeaten skin crisscrossed by scars, flinty eyes sunken into deep sockets that peer out from above a single-filter rebreather, and a large scroll wrapped in chains slung diagonally across his back.

"Some of you," Takanori's voice is deep and gravelly as he addresses the roughly twenty-five jounin assembled in the little meadow, "may be coming from engaging Kusa, Konoha, or even Iwa, but this assignment is not another raiding or sapping mission, we will be blunting an attack from one of Konoha's assault divisions." There's no noise from the ninja he addresses, you all know better than to murmur or gasp, you'd all been briefed. "This is not the understrength army that followed the White Fang back to the Land of Fire with their tails tucked between their legs," no-one laughs, it's not a joke, "but fresh troops who have blooded themselves against Kusagakure's holdouts. Many of them will expect from us what they found in Kusa's forces, but some have already faced our shinobi, so do not reflect their rookies' arrogance. We are outnumbered three-to-one, but our goal is only to bloody Konoha's nose so that they realize an invasion of the Land of Storms would be costlier than their stalemate in the Meadows. Some of you will die, but a shinobi is one who sacrifices when called upon. However, I know, that if you are standing here before me, you are worth more than any two of the enemy's men!"

That elicits a muted cheer from the crowd, and you find yourself smiling and raising a first in the air despite yourself. You can almost imagine Lord Hanzo giving the same speech before toppling Storms' last daimyo. Almost, you can't quite imagine Lord Hanzo young.

Your position in the counter-assault is:

[] At the front, with the bukijutsu specialists and half of the ninjutsu users. At a glance, it's where you belong, as you're pretty sure your kenjutsu is noted above (but less extensively) than your taijutsu in your official file. It's where the most intense fighting is going to be, so you don't mind being placed there.

[] On the wings, with the more offensive taijutsu specialists. At the commander's side. While the front will clash with the more offensively-oriented Konoha-nin, the wings are going to be meeting the middle of their formation, where their most dangerous ninja will be. The fighting will start later, and likely be quicker, but that doesn't mean it will be any less dangerous.

[] At the very back, charged with the defense of the few genjutsu users and med-nin who have been hand-picked for this mission. While it isn't the most glorious posting, it does show that someone higher up has some faith in you, as attacking med-nin is common practice in war, and genjutsu users are often picked off before they can cause serious problems on the battlefield.

Voting closes at Jun 14, 2024 at 9:00 PM !

A/N: Sorry again for the wait. I thought I barely had this started but I was actually more than eight hundred words in, so in retrospect I cheated you out of an action scene I quite enjoyed reading on review. Because of that and the wait I also decided to move the vote up just a bit, however, this new vote could have unforeseen repercussions in this mission and even in the future. Also the next update will be similarly late on Saturday night at the absolute earliest, my weekend is pretty swamped.

A/N2: The mausoleum towers were mentioned as kind of an aside in the manga, and I completely forgot about it. They might get referenced here and there, but since Tsubaki doesn't really have roots in Ame and that doesn't really interest her, it will be in asides or offhand. I also had a devious idea for (very near) future Ame affairs, so get ready for the rollercoaster ride. Well, get ready for Tsubaki to watch the rollercoaster ride…