Bone and Blood (Naruto Quest)

The only thing approaching trouble you run into crossing the border is a team of Kusa-nin who spots your team at a distance and seemingly turns around after realizing that you're from Ame instead of Iwa or Konoha.

Eventually you come to a stop on a steep hillside around two kilometers from the approximate location of the supply depot you were assigned to soften up. The two special jounin you deployed with are a sensor-type and an Earth Style ninjutsu specialist, so you shouldn't have too hard of a time pulling this off. The sensor is a young shinobi a few years older than you with long hair who wears a tan boilersuit and a gas mask without a cartridge, his forehead protector hangs loosely around his neck. The ninjutsu specialist doesn't look the part, he's shorter and slighter than your other teammate, and wears a flak jacket over a baggy long-sleeved shirt and pants combo more typical of other villages, he wears his forehead protector in the intended way, keeping his straw blond (an uncommon color in Ame) hair out of his face.

"We're lucky it's raining here," the ninjutsu specialist, who you've decided is 'Mask' for the time being, says when you find a rocky outcropping to duck under, out of sight from anyone who might be passing below.

It's always raining, you're basically still in the Land of Rain. Maybe it doesn't always rain here, but it's usually raining when you're in this part of the Land of Meadows. "Why's that?" You ask, observing the light drizzle graying out the scenery in front of you.

Mask smirks, you think, it's hard to tell considering the mask, "why don't I show you?" He begins weaving careful hand signs, before intoning, "Water Style: Refractory Mirror."

The tiny raindrops coalesce into a coin-sized disc several meters out from the outcropping, and Mask closes one of his eyes, seemingly focusing with the other.

"Oh, like a telescope, neat," the other special jounin, who you've decided will be 'Hair', comments, performing a final check on his gear. He's probably just trying to look busy, but it never hurts to be prepared.

Mask shushes him, and Hair shrugs, putting his gear away.

What you can see of the sensor's face twitches in concentration, and after a few minutes, he hums, then nods. "Yeah, it's there. There are five- no, six, guards, one is far out, north of us, east of the depot. All around chunin level, one might be a jounin, it's hard to tell—" His eye snaps open and he almost falls, only catching himself with his hands.

"They must have a counter-sensor, they saw the Mirror," he says, sounding worried.

"Six chunin isn't so bad, but I'd rather have the element of surprise," you muse, "let's move."

You don't even manage to get around the hillock before one of the Iwa-nin, an exceptionally beige shinobi, pops out of the muddy soil and flings a pair of heavy daggers at you. You turn the projectiles away with a swift backhand and slap before planting your feet and turning to the assailant.

"Pretty fast," Hair says, throwing kunai with an explosive tag tailing behind it at the first Iwa-nin and another who pops out of the mud. The first Iwa-nin plunges himself back underground, while the second leaps free, throwing himself away in what you can tell is a sloppy and slow body flicker.

[] Send the special jounin to compromise the depot, you'll gather up and deal with (most) of the enemy ninja. You can trust them with that, especially with their specialties, and four or so chunin isn't insurmountable.

[] Have the special jounin deal with the enemy ninja, you'll act as a diversion to gather them up, then have the special jounin hold them back while you deal with the depot's defenses. Afterwards you'll be able to help your teammates, if any of their enemies remain.

[] Send Hair (the ninjutsu specialist) to mess up the depot while holding back Mask (the sensor) to keep him out of danger and allow you to get the drop on any of the defenders. You'll have to be a bit more mobile, but you've never had trouble juggling multiple tasks.

[] Write-in.

Voting closes at Apr 15, 2025 at 4:00 PM!

A/N: Sorry for the wait and the relative shortness, Spring has just never been a good time of year for me. Though recently nothing might seem like my time of year, I'll keep updating when I can, and keep you posted when I can't. Thanks for sticking with it.

A/N2: Also sorry for a downer author's note, originally there wasn't going to be a choice here but it felt better to get it out now rather than later, and this will help with getting the next chapter out sooner.

"I'll deal with the enemies, you two just make sure the depot is breached and any traps are disarmed for our friends across the border," you say passively as you stretch. "Just tell me where the one who just dipped underground went first."

Mask concentrates for a moment, holding the rat sign with his eyes screwed shut. "He's still here, just a few meters," he opens is his, pointing a vague direction to the left, "there, right there, moving—"

You follow his finger, pumping Wind chakra into your legs with Howling Movement before launching into a body flicker. Instantaneously, you're spearing through the soft soil with your feet, exposing the tunneling Iwa-nin. You didn't quite crush his ribcage, as you had intended, instead clipping his torso and throwing him free of the two meter deep crater you created when you body flickered into him. The Iwa-nin tries to say something, but only manages to cough up a mess of blood, which you quickly add to when you slash out his throat with a quick swipe of your hand.

Huh, you almost figured that he was the jounin, based on how boldly he attacked you. Snapping your head in the direction the other Iwa-nin went, you shoot off after him. He only body flickered once, like you suspected, so you easily catch up with him and aim to take his head off with a roundhouse kick. The presumed chunin stumbles as you catch up to him, but manages to turn it into a dive, throwing himself to the muddy ground so that your kick misses him by mere inches. He draws the tanto at his back as he rolls over to face you, and slashes up. You're still more than fast enough to catch his hand on the upswing, planting one foot on the tsuba and driving the other heel into his head. He's saved by the softness of the muddy soil underfoot, but you quickly remedy that by turning mid-stomp, raking your hand downward into the pommel of his blade and ramming it through his stomach. You chose not to retrieve his blade, since he rolled back onto his stomach after you stabbed him.

Two out of six enemies dealt with, you decide to find the rest with a jutsu you only recently figured out. Pollen Dance, as you've chosen to call it (or which it's actually called, you have a suspicion that you, on some level, are instinctively aware of the names of your kekkei genkai techniques), works by creating miniscule bone fragments on your skin (or, if you chose, in your respiratory tract) and expelling them into the air. A rudimentary application of Wind Style helps in the dispersal of the bone dust, which extends your perception past even what your normal, sharp senses can pick up. Though it's a perception-widening technique, it doesn't work exactly like sensing, instead of the nebulous sixth sense sensors have described, it's more like it extends your sense of touch through the cloud.

The cloud spreads out rapidly once you pulse Wind chakra through your skin, going from dense white cloud to a barely-perceptible mist that blankets the hills and extends a phantom sense of touch far enough for you to pick up the faint signatures of your teammates. You can also pick up two of the remaining Iwa-nin closing in on your location, and soil being disturbed from another traveling underground, though he seems to simply be patrolling equidistant to you and the special jounin.

You meet one of the two approaching Iwa-nin halfway, you see that it's a kunoichi, her face set in determination betrayed by a nervousness you catch a glimpse of in her eyes. She's not much older than you, and you guess that she's one of the chunin; a suspicion that's proven true when she moves a split second too late and you drive the heel of your palm into her throat before she's even able to clumsily dig a kunai out of the pouch strapped to her thigh. Stumbling back, she abandons any plans for engaging you in melee and tries to form a hand seal, but you snap your heel into her temple with a hook kick, letting her fall with a satisfying 'crack'.

Half of the enemy team dealt with, you disturb yet more mud with another experimental Wind-enhanced body flicker to move onto the fourth. He's not that far away, having just gotten close enough to see you drop his teammate, so he's more ready for you than she was. That doesn't mean he's prepared, however, and your enhanced speed and power let you punch through his hastily thrown guard with ease. The noise he lets out as he goes down is a lot wetter, since you're pretty sure you drove his xiphoid process straight through his liver.

You're pleased with the result of the body flicker taijutsu, though it was only possible with the added tactile acuity provided by Pollen Dance. Unlike the first time you tried it, you didn't overextend yourself or get a hindering amount of tunnel vision, though some was still present, and you hit just about as hard as you wanted too. It's still not quite reliable yet, but it's certainly coming together.

Pollen Dance tells you that the tunneler is heading back towards the depot and that the last Iwa-nin is… outside of your 'sensing' range, huh, maybe your teammates drove them off. That actually does seem to be the case, as, even though you can feel that one of them (Mask, on closer inspection) is down while the other (Hair) is looking him over, meanwhile there are no enemies near them.

You don't need doubly-enhanced speed to catch up to the tunneler, though you do keep up Howling Movement so that you can easily dig him out of the ground. While you are able to unearth the Iwa-nin with a single kick deep into the dirt, it doesn't do anything but momentarily stun him. The wiry shinobi manages to roll away from your follow up punch, and he springs upright using his hands. Still, you outpace him and catch him with a snap-kick to the abdomen which causes him to stumble onto his tiptoes. You follow him, kicking yourself up aiming a punch for his chin, which he blocks with a harsh grimace. Taking advantage of the pain response, you aim an uppercut at his stomach, but he's cognizant enough to twist out of the way, and the strike only connects with his sternum. He coughs, but it's enough for him to completely lose his footing, and you capitalize on that by kneeing him in the stomach and lifting him into the air. You launch off the retraction of the knee and drive your heel into his abdomen to lift him even further up before maneuvering around him while he's still reeling from the kick to ram both of your fists directly into his spine.

The final Iwa-nin crashes to the ground with his eyes rolled back into his head and his mouth wrenched into a silent scream, and you take off for the depot the instant you touch the ground.

When you arrive, you see Mask laying on the ground with Hair kneeling over him, finishing tying his left arm up in a makeshift sling. "Oh, hey Jounin Tsubaki," the blond shinobi greets after glancing over his shoulder at you, "we were lucky until we weren't, their own jounin—" he mulls over that in his head for a moment, "probably, turned around as soon as he realized we were here I think. I was able to drive him off, but I was preoccupied clearing out the traps, so he did a number on Rota before I was able to get back here. Maybe I should be thanking you for scaring him off though, you dealt with the rest of them, huh?"

"That's right," you confirm. Looking closer, you can see that he's already bandaged up Mask- er, Rota's head, and wrapped up his lower left leg in a compress. You'd guess the last Iwa-nin was a Fire Style user, either that or he's zealous in his use of explosive tags. "How is he? We should probably get out of here soon."

"Just give me a minute," he flashes a smile at you over his shoulder, "I can do some field triage and he's not too bad, but we should still get him to a medic sooner rather than later. Don't worry about it though, he'll be able to travel when I'm done." He glances at the other special jounin's face, observing his shallow breathing, "well, we'll be able to travel with him. I'll carry him though, he did get roughed up on my watch."

You're about to dispute that, since you're the de facto leader of the team, and you're certain you're physically stronger than him, but he's significantly taller than you, and slightly taller than Rotaro. "Alright," you finally accept, "but you'd better be able to keep up."

"Yessir," he says with a jaunty salute.


"We got all but one of them, and that's only cause the last one blew up," Hair comments, sitting down on a stump next to the medical tent you brought Mask to on the outskirts of one of the last large villages left in northern Storms.

You nod, "we're lucky we were able to report in here," stretching, you continue, "now we can get back to the village sooner."

"Maybe we can even get some downtime," Hair says with a smile. "Well, Jounin Tsubaki, it's been an honor watching you work. I hope I get lucky enough to run more missions with you."

"Thanks," you say after a beat, it's a really weird compliment, "but it's not that far to the village."

The special jounin shrugs, "I'm going to get a bite to eat, and you're faster than me anyway." That is true. "Anyway, if you get a team request from Minoru in the future, that's me." With a wink he turns, stretches, and heads towards the little concrete town to the west.


"Tsubaki! Tsubaki! I have great news!" Tobiko Uebido exclaims, approaching you with a wave as you're about to enter your house. It's too early for your mother to be home, so it's just you, and you desperately want to take a bath.

"Yes?" You say after debating whether or not to pretend like you hadn't noticed here. Though there's no way she'd buy that, given she's also an Ame jounin. You're not fatigued, you're not even tired, but you don't really feel like engaging in the other kunoichi's level of conversation right now.

The older jounin puffs her cheeks out at your response, almost like a kid. "Well, maybe I don't have news then," you spot the scroll in her left hand when she crosses her arms. "No, I'm not that petty, but I won't force you to put on tea, so we can have something to discuss it over."

"That sounds good," you accept. It does sound preferable.

"I didn't—" she wags a finger at you, somehow catching sarcasm in your sincerity, "oh you. Alright, fine," the redhead produces the scroll with a flourish, handing it over to you. "I managed to dye them quicker than I thought, but it took more chakra than I thought it would. It really is impressively dense."

"Thanks?" You take the compliment first before accepting the scroll with a dip of your head, "Oh, and thank you for the effort, it doesn't sound like it was easy."

"Nope! But don't worry," she winks one of her golden eyes- why do you keep getting winked at?- "we can consider it a favor."

With that, she's gone in a flash of light- one of the flashier methods of concealing body flicker among the shinobi of Amegakure.

Once you get inside and unseal the Robes of the Fire Rat, you're pleasantly surprised. The patterns are tasteful, mostly geometric with a few clouds and floral patterns thrown in, and the colors are a nice balance of rich and mild. Your satisfaction is quickly deflated by the realization that this was quite a lot of work, and that you definitely owe Tobiko more than you thought you might when you made this deal.


A masked porter catches you early the next morning as you depart the missions office, hand-delivering you a mission scroll. This in itself isn't odd, but the fact that your name is present in the body of text of the scroll is. Still, despite your suspicions, you gather your supplies, leave a note for your mother, and arrive at the designated meeting place, a large field on the far side of the shortest of the bridges across the great lake Amegakure sits on.

Once the entire group- a strike team meant to break a fortified town that serves as a stronghold for Konoha's supply lines into the Land of Meadows- is assembled, you quickly realize something curious. Besides the three medics present for the mission, and you, every single member of the team is from the Hiroge clan. It's hard not to realize, after you take note of their brown to black hair, stocky builds, and dark green eyes. Using the Hiroge in a mission like this isn't a bad idea, but it's odd that so many clan shinobi, especially shinobi of a single clan, would be deployed together on a single mission.

[] Keep at the head of the formation, both to quickly get into the thick of things when you meet your mission objective, and to give yourself some distance from a situation you don't have as much of a grasp on as you'd like.

[] Stay near the rear of the formation, near the medics. Technically this means acting as a sort of rear guard, which doesn't appeal to you that much, it also means that you'll be able to gauge what's going on when things turn hot.

[] Approach the mission leader as you move out, it probably couldn't hurt to ask about the peculiarities of the mission. You'll also stick close to him as you move, to keep the best possible handle on the situation.

[] This is weird, but the best thing you can do is act natural and not question things. Just keep your head down and follow orders, you're with a bunch of other people who like to smash things up, surely things couldn't go too wrong?

[] Write-in.

Voting closes at Apr 30, 2025 at 6:45 PM!

A/N: Not much to say for this one, it ended up being longer than expected, which is good, so I hope you enjoy!

A/N2: Well, there is that sidestory I mentioned. It may or may not be out before/around the same time as the next update, but it will be out this campaign.