[X] Head to the center of the triangle formed by Santoshi, Tsunshigai, and Imachi to disrupt the Jashinist ritual taking place there, BUT if we don't find anything there, pivot southwards and head to Imachi
[X] Follow the tracks (Hurry, decreased chakra upon arrival, increases the risk of losing tracks/doubling back.) If we lose the trail, rather than doubling back, Head to the center of the triangle formed by Santoshi, Tsunshigai, and Imachi to disrupt the Jashinist ritual taking place there
Realization struck Ryoko like a bolt of lightning.
A circle of blood, smeared by her hand. Mounds of butchered corpses, dragged into a circle and mutilated further. A mission report thicker than some novels, and a teenage clan head with a thousand-yard stare. Blood, death, and all the cruelty of a fighting dog gone rabid.
This was the work of a Jashin cult.
Ryoko held up a silent hand sign for "hold position" and consciously slowed her breathing, thoughts turning inward.
"Smell the flowers, blow out the candle," she thought in the corner of her mind, unconsciously synchronizing her breathing patterns to the beat of a spear kata. Then, the larger part of Ryoko's mind began to examine the clusterfuck this mission turned into.
One: The Akatsuki are the world's kage, now.
This is an undisputed fact. The organization of missing nin, of traitors, had killed Lord Seventh without a thought, and escaped without any consequences on the geopolitical scale.
Ryoko was just a special jonin, and a combat ninja at that. She was no Lady Firehair, who could strut into enemy territory without a second thought and come back with their most precious secrets.
Ryoko was just a special jonin, and a blunt instrument at that. She was no Ami, who could carelessly dance around S-rankers like it was a summer solstice party, smiling all the while.
Ryoko… was Ryoko.
An ever-distant, ever-frantic figure at a desk, unresponsive to Ryoko's prompting. A bloodstained carpet dominated the room of a too-empty house. Silence filled the air, choking Ryoko and driving her to the training fields. Anything to get out.
Ryoko reflexively pushed the intrusive thoughts aside, drumming her fingers against the leather straps of her bandolier, and returned to the issue at hand.
Two: The Akatsuki mandated that Jashinism be allowed within Leaf and the outlying Fire Country. Lady Tsunade had allowed it, twisting the command into a baited trap that exposed heathens to the wider community.
No doubt deviants would soon find themselves encountering missions far beyond their skillset, or vanishing in the middle of the night.
Three: If this is the work of a Jashin cult –and it was –then if Ryoko led her team against them, then she would be leading her team against a lawfully-recognized religious group. One that's backed by the unrestrained power of the Akatsuki.
"Fighting dogs gone rabid." The thought bubbled back to the surface of Ryoko's mind, and she thought to the Inuzuka Clan's practice of putting down their ninken who went mad –though, to the clan's credit, their ninken went mad far less often than Leaf ninja went missing.
In Leaf, civilians have protected rights. It's one of the many things that sets Leaf apart from countries like Rock, or Sand. A ninja can't senselessly kill a civilian and nonlethal restraints are one of the first things that the Academy teaches in their taijutsu classes.
At least, that was the theory. According to Sarutobi Reina, librarian of Leaf and oldest Leaf civilian, it was actually the norm, back when Hashirama was alive. With him gone, though, the Tower had become far choosier about which incidents to prosecute –Goketsu Haru had publicly murdered a handful of civilians, yakuza members notwithstanding, and no one had blinked twice.
But still, laws were laws, and Ryoko was on a direct assignment from her Hokage… These cultists were breaking the law by murdering civilians –slaughtering entire towns in an unrestrained orgy of violence that made Ryoko sneer at the unprofessionalism proudly displayed.
Ryoko could spin it that way.
She would spin it that way.
Hopefully her new Hokage would agree with her interpretation of the law, and she wouldn't be sacrificed as an inconvenient piece in the Elemental Nations' wider geopolitical games.
Ryoko's gaze turned outward once more, and she turned to face her team. Shin looked at her with nervous anticipation. Sugiyama's scowl spoke of calm expectation.
"Okay, here's what we're going to do. We're going to book it, following these tracks. We'll fan out, using Madara's Second Formation as a safety net in case I miss any tracks. If we run into a chakra beast, don't engage. Substitute out of the way, and keep running. If we encounter something fast enough to outpace us, then I'll take care of it, but don't stop running."
"Ma'am," Shin raised his hand like an academy student asking a question. "Are we concerned at all about stealth? We're going to be making a lot of noise that way, never mind the trail we'll leave."
"Forgo stealth," Ryoko confirmed her order, raising her chin just a little to give the impression of a displeased tutor looking down at their student. "The tracks head eastward, and Imachi and Tsunshigai are both two days away. We're going to make it in one."
"I hate emergency response protocols," Sugiyama's scowl deepened. "You know we're going to get there with half our reserves burnt on getting there?"
"Yeah, I do," Ryoko nodded, wearing a mask of patience that she didn't feel. This was a waste of time. They should already be running. There was no time, and every second Ryoko spent talking things out was a second that they weren't running.
Combat instincts, honed by war, screamed at Ryoko. That many deaths, in addition to the other two farming hamlets? They needed to be on the road, and they needed to be on the road now.
But this was a lie. Her team would be cooperative once they were fully informed. They would run faster, fight harder, knowing the truth. The time spent debriefing them on her realization wasn't a waste, it was an investment.
Besides, if the worst should happen, and she were to die, then they needed to know the situation so that Lord Eighth would be aware that the Akatsuki's cult was moving in on Leaf.
The party rocketed through Fire Country, leaping from tree branches with such force that their chakra repulsion stripped bark from tree trunks and shattered weaker tree limbs.
They cut a swath through the underbrush, burning chakra to infuse their muscles with enough strength to leap over hills rather than waste time trekking around them.
They ran for hours, and their noise scattered away weaker chakra beasts while attracting the more dangerous, territorial ones.
Fortunately, none of the beasts were able to keep up with the murderous pace that Ryoko set, and when one came close to nipping at Shin's heels, he was forced to burn even more chakra to Substitute away.
"Need to run him through long distance evasion tactics again," Ryoko thought, even as part of her mind whispered that Shin was a child, and should be more concerned about late night parties than if he was bringing his once-neglected skills up to par.
"Ryoko," Sugiyama's voice broke through their silent sprint, cracking from disuse. "Shin."
Ryoko leapt through a smaller tree limb, flaring her chakra so that it would break against her torso, landed on a tree trunk, and then launched to the next one. As she soared through the air, she glanced over her shoulder at Shin.
Shin's pale face, corpse-white and sweat-drenched, reddened in embarrassment. He had fallen behind, a little, and was blatantly burning through his reserves to keep up, rather than flaring them here or there to achieve a long distance sprint.
Ryoko flared her own chakra, and allowed her next leap to carry her over the canopy. It was getting dark, and the sky was bleeding orange rents. Sunset was well on its way, and dusk would be here soon.
"Shin," Ryoko said, flawlessly falling through the treeline and back into pace with her team. "I know we're getting close, but you know the area better. You've read the maps and recent mission reports. Best estimation: how much further?"
Despite the teenager's best efforts, he slowed down as he thought.
"If they've made camp in the Daichi Ravine, then maybe another hour? Two?"
Ryoko nodded, digesting that.
"Let's find camp."
Chakra Beasties
1d10 = 3
Chakra Beasts chase!
1d100 = 18
Nevermind, they're too slow!
Trail Tracking
Okay, so on one hand: the enemy ninja weren't really trying to hide their tracks. On the other hand, the tracks are several days old. Given the ecology of Fire Country, and that they're in a quasi-rainforest, it's safe to assume that the tracks have degraded by a decent amount.
It's going to be a pretty great feat, though definitely possible (they're native Fire Country ninja, operating on their home turf, after all). So let's call it a TN 40 Examination check to be able to successfully keep the trail of footprints/broken leaves/etc.
Since Santoshi is ~2 days away from either Imachi or Tsunshigai, let's say it's going to be "a few days" on the time ladder by default. Through the "Hurrying" Mechanic, the party's going to travel all day and try to make it in one day, so that's a -2AB malus. Narratively, we'll say that the Shin recognizes where the tracks are leading to an hour or two, out from the track's destination.
Now, they've just sprinted a full 2 days of effort in one day. That's a pretty heavy feat, but they're also bullshit superhuman ninja with magic, so let's do some Physique rolls to see just how drained they are.
We'll subtract a flat 75 chakra as a baseline cost for the chakra sprinting. Then we'll set a Physique TN check of 50*, and subtract an additional 25 chakra for every shift of failure to meet the TN. If they fail by more than 3 shifts, then I'll start adding Consequences.
*this is a pretty awesome feat, but given the fundamentally superhuman nature of ninja, I'm going to say that this is "merely" a superb accomplishment for this setting. It might be different if they were in unfamiliar territory, or if they had rolled really poorly on the chakra beast encounter tables. But alas, the dice have been friendly so far
Ryoko: 228 - (75 + (25 * 2)) = 103 ("at about a fourth of her reserves")
Sugiyama: ?? - (75 + (25 * ??)) = ?? ("a little under a third in the well, Ryoko")
Shin: ?? - (75 + (25 * ??)) = ?? ("running on empty, ma'am")
The double-time sprint was rough on the party, but Shin especially, who passed out as soon as Ryoko confirmed her traps were set.
Ryoko, herself, has 103 chakra remaining.
Sugiyama reports that they're at "a little under a third."
Shin mumbled "near-empty, ma'am" in his sleep.
Does Ryoko call for a four hour sleep cycle, allowing everyone to recover +half to their reserves, or does she allow for a full eight hours, allowing everyone to fully recover their chakra reserves?
[] (sleep) Four Hours. Decreased chakra recovery, increases speed of arrival.
[] (sleep) Eight Hours. Increased chakra recovery, decreases speed of arrival.
Ryoko is an experienced special jonin who regularly goes on combat missions with Sugiyama, and has conducted extensive remedial training for Shin. Sugiyama is a medical/taijutsu spec with a jutsu that boosts counterattacking, and Shin was recently reclassified as a tracking specialist with ranged ninjutsu.
What battle tactics does Ryoko command? Be as broad or as specific as you'd like.
[] Ryoko takes primary melee combatant, Sugiyama is the secondary melee, Shin takes ranged and provides support with jutsu/explosives
[] Skywalking above the ravine, Ryoko leads with a Spiraling Spear at range while the party buffs.
[] Write-in
Okay, not my best update, but I've been sick, and perfection is the enemy of progress. Voting will be open for ~48hrs.
Some stuff that didn't fit in:
Following the trail as they have been, Shin feels pretty strongly that there are only two ninja who did this. Given this information, Ryoko now thinks, based on the ruins of Santoshi, that one or both ninja are special jonin-tier who specialize in ninjutsu.
She also thinks, somewhat scornfully, that they're either new-ish to the rank, or extremely unprofessional. Either of which can be abused.
The Daichi Ravine is an artificial landform, created during the First Ninja War. Legendary Water Ninjutsu from Senju Tobirama synergized very well with Earth Ninjutsu from Akimichi Daichi to kill off two teams of invading Mist ninja. Tobirama alone survived the battle, and named the resulting landmark after his fallen teammate.
It's big, but narrow, and without a lot of hiding spots. Ryoko thinks they should be able to find it easily enough, especially with Shin in the party.
The Daichi Ravine is an artificial landform, created during the First Ninja War. Legendary Water Ninjutsu from Senju Tobirama synergized very well with Earth Ninjutsu from Akimichi Daichi to kill off two teams of invading Mist ninja. Tobirama alone survived the battle, and named the resulting landmark after his fallen teammate.