Unfortunately for you, there was one. Or one of them is a very good sensor. In the brief moment of hindsight you're afforded before you roll out of the tree, collapsing as a result of an Earth technique, you surmise that both are equally possible.
I knew scouting them would turn into fighting
While Willow Dance activates itself immediately, it takes Willful Cactus some time to actually snap you out of the powerful technique. You come to some distance from the Iwa-nin, suppressing your instinct to suck in a deep breath while you assess whatever damage you sustained while blacked out, as that's all the genjutsu did, put you into something like a deep sleep or unconscious state. The first thing you notice is that the left side of your chest is wet, from your collarbone down to the bottom of your ribs, and the wetness is spreading. The second thing you notice is that your hand is wrapped around a sword. The third thing you notice is that the sword is embedded halfway into your neck.
I thought it would take something like Tsukuyomi to do this? Guess we need to upgrade Willful Cactus or improve Tsubaki's genjutsu defense in other ways.
Knowing that you're unable to ossify your blood vessels panics you for a moment before you remember basic anatomy, and the fact that those same blood vessels can expand and contract on their own. Using that, with great concentration, you're able to force the severed jugular and carotid shut, and you can feel the blood rushing through the right side of your neck picking up the slack. Once that's done, you allow yourself to exhale. At least the blade didn't pierce your windpipe, as that's typically hardened when you're traveling in the field, unlike your skin and muscles, which you keep normal for flexibility, speed, and the sake of conserving chakra. Then you pull the sword out.
Well, this will be good justification for a regeneration option when training time comes around.
That's just what you wanted, and you appear behind the entire group in two steps. The man who came to the back with the genjutsu specialist notices you, and his mouth opens to say something in warning to the rest of his team, but it's too late. As soon as your right foot touches the ground, you fire your core in one swift snap, swinging the chakra blade with the force of a hurricane. The sword, seething with hyper dense Wind chakra, cuts through the genjutsu specialist with such force that it defoliates the top of the tree at the apex of your swing. The enemy kunoichi herself is blown in half, her arms flying in opposite directions as her head and torso spin through the air and land with a wet thump in the underbrush.
This is definitely metal.
You drop Jet Movement when it's all done, but you don't drop Cedar Dance. You allow yourself a sigh of relief before touching yourself on the neck, checking if your natural regeneration has sewed the severed blood vessels back together. It has, but you can tell that the pulse is weaker on your left side than your right. It's going to heal over time for sure, but you're not sure whether or not you should find a medic. Your medical history is sealed, you know that, and you don't want to give up any sort of biometric data or chakra samples, but the blood making your kimono stick to your side reminds you of just how real the injury you took actually is.
Is this a significant drop in performance, or just a severe hp debuff until Tsubaki heals?
[] Go to one of the smaller villages serving as bases for the Ame-nin combating Iwa's scouts as well as the forces massing to blunt Konoha's potential invasion and find a medic, just in case. It couldn't hurt.
This doesn't sound like Tsubaki is worried about her injury, and this is the option that would make her be worried about it.
[] Find a river or something to wash the blood off in and get a change of clothes from one of your scrolls. Sure, it hurt in the moment, but your body is able to deal with it, so you should just get on with your mission.
With this option, she definitely isn't worried about it.
[] The first order of business is disrupting Konoha's supply lines before they can reinforce against Iwa's more elite western forces. In theory, similar to this mission, though likely with more genin and chunin involved on the enemy side, and loose teams of jounin and chunin on your side.
So in theory, the easier mission?
[] The first order of business is eliminating Konoha's forces before they're able to attack into the Land of Storms from the Land of Meadows and establish the foothold, turning your country into a battlefield between two great powers just like the last war. This mission will consist of a lot of jounin working together, as the reports regarding Konoha's gathered shinobi paint a daunting picture.
This sounds like either massed jonin combat or S rank enemies. Or the areas where I would worry most about being on low hp.
A/N: Not much to say for this one, if the injury seems like a lot, it kind of is, but I pictured it and everything kind of spilled out from there. These also weren't 'front-line' jounin, so they didn't put up as much of a fight as others may have against Tsubaki, though her being able to bolt while under genjutsu and being stabbed in the neck before coming back without a scratch on her certainly helped. This also ended up way longer than I expected, that's just how action goes I guess, you lose yourself writing it.
The initial genjutsu was scary, but I was surprised Tsubaki took no damage after that.
[x] Find a river or something to wash the blood off in and get a change of clothes from one of your scrolls. Sure, it hurt in the moment, but your body is able to deal with it, so you should just get on with your mission.
[x] The first order of business is disrupting Konoha's supply lines before they can reinforce against Iwa's more elite western forces. In theory, similar to this mission, though likely with more genin and chunin involved on the enemy side, and loose teams of jounin and chunin on your side.
