Date: Two months thirteen days since awakening
Subject: Preparations
I managed to borrow a bingo book to try to find targets and weaknesses. Now that I actually say that out lout, the name is really stupid. It makes me think of like an instruction manual for playing a really bloody version of bingo, where the bounty hunters have to get the right kills to fill out their sheet, fortunately the center square is free so that makes it easier on everyone.
Unfortunately I won't have any real idea of who is actually at the Iwa camp until I scout out the area a bit.
Repairing the puppet from the fight wasn't easy. The kunai really did a number on it, several of the internal cables are severed, and the splintering has clogged up the ball joints. I can probably salvage the main pieces, sand them down a bit, but the spheres will have to be re-carved from scratch.
Date: Two months fifteen days since awakening
Subject: searching for Iwa encampment
I've been doing a zigzag search pattern with my birds, high altitude, south to north, west to east, starting at the least likely zones and moving closer and closer towards Earth country.
No luck so far, nor any patrols spotted.
Date: Two months seventeen days since awakening
Subject search results
No camps, two enemy patrols, unable to tail them for long before arousing suspicion. Trails seem to indicate that their base is to the north-east of the country's capital.
Date: Two months nineteen days since awakening
Subject: search results
Number of patrols increases dramatically when looking closer towards Claw's capital.
Date: Two months twenty days since awakening
Subject: Iwa base camp
Found it! Half way sunk into the ground at the back of a blind canyon. I assume that there's probably an escape route planned out, though in reality an escape route with ninja could easily be straight up a sheer cliff face.
Date: Two months twenty six days since awakening
Subject: Infiltration
It took a few days to fly a bird back, I loaded it up with a dozen of my left over insect puppets and fly it back. It's a lot of work just to ferry such a tiny payload. The birds are actually quite slow, about the pace of a real bird, so as to avoid suspicion. If I were going full tilt I could reach the Iwa base in a day, maybe less.
Bird is swooping low now. I've released the passengers…
Seems I was at least partially correct. The area that's visible from the air is all barracks, people moving in and out frequently, yet there are no command tends, no hospital tents, no armories or storage areas. All the logistics are elsewhere, this is just a clearing area for field teams.
I recognize that guy, Naboru Isumi, high ranked chunin with a specialization in rock traps. Pit falls, rockslides, surprise boulders, his record has it all.
Oh, and that looks like Masaka Hitomi, genjutsu mistress.
There are some dangerous people around here. Or, at least they're dangerous for me.
There are enough insects buzzing around the lights… I think I can get a few of my own to intermingle with them unnoticed.
It's odd, I had thought that there would be an underground passage for sure, something like Otogakure, but I'm not seeing any. If this is really all there is here, then they must be pulling out, just leaving a few of their stronger people to hold their rear.
Aaaannd gotch'ya. I infiltrated a single insect into some fabric folds of some of the stronger people. Even if they find them they're just seem like dead bugs that got squished between layers. Alight, it'd be a bit embarrassing if one of them sensed the chakra in the supposedly dead insect, but the amount of chakra flowing into them is really comparable to a living insect, so it should be fine.
Date: Two months twenty seven days since awakening
Subject: I'm an idiot
The bugs I left on the chunin revealed that there is indeed an entrance. A bunch of rock nin hiding their door behind a rock, what a shocker! I can't believe I didn't think of that.
They seem to open up every morning and evening to switch out personnel and supplies. I'm sure that there are a few backdoors to the complex, but they're also doubtless hidden at least as well as this one.
When the next opening comes I'm sending in a couple of scouting bugs to check it out.
Date: Twelve hours later
Subject: Chance
Slipped in three bugs, last one almost didn't make it, getting clipped on the tail. If it were alive it would probably be leaking ichor and internal organs right now.
The design doesn't seem to be like Orochimaru's bases, maybe the twisty pattern in the stone was a personal conceit, meant to represent writhing snakes, it's make sense with the dark purple stone and poor lighting, possibly as a camouflage for any actual snakes he left lying around.
This base is well lit with plain brown stone. Homogeneous enough with the surrounding rock that even if you carved your way in from the outside you probably wouldn't notice the difference in texture or appearance.
Simple layout, I'd expect it to be convoluted. Maybe it's because it has a lot of people coming and going, or maybe because it's temporary, I haven't quite figured that out yet.
First level seems to be the hospital, makes sense, don't want to be going up and down stairs with the dying. Grid pattern to the hallways, emergency escape route… seems to be over to the north, that'd put its exit near the river. Ok, in that case they'd probably just float back to Earth country and safety, smart.
Second level is storage and logistics it looks like. Huh, the armory is kind of bare. I would have thought that can manipulate rock would easily have the strongest manufacturing economy, yet for some reason they don't seem to have major applications in the mining industry.
Third level, here we go, administration and command. Shit, the commander is Tetsuo Ogata, mid ranked jounin. If Akemi is similar to Ebisu from the show, then Ogata is closer to Hayate Gekko. Even if we did attack this base full on, with the most favorable odds possible, they'd still slaughter us.
Taking out the commander simply wasn't going to happen. I seriously doubt I would be able to even make a dent in the guys outside, and if they got attacked then the automatic response would be for the people in the underground base to scatter… Huh. I think I have a plan, tis a cunning plan indeed, but I'll need to test a few things first.
Date: Two months twenty nine days after awakening
Subject: Sealed space
I was correct. I put one of my yang source squirrels in an airtight container and sealed it. He came back fine.
Between making the human sized containers, I'll just call them caskets, and churning out enough disposable puppets, it's going to be a busy few days.
Date: Three months eight days since awakening
Subject: Preparations complete
I made sure to complete sixty caskets, a third again as many I should need in even the best of circumstances, and managed to get twenty six disposable puppets ready in time. I've got them sealed in some scrolls stuffed in the bellies of some of my birds. It should hopefully work as planned.
Date: Three months ten days since awakening
Subject: After action report
I started off by having twenty puppets disguised as Suna nin approach the surface encampment. Five were sent under the dirt to begin the surprise assault.
Something that is never really used, but which I have no intention of overlooking, is mixing together subterranean movement jutsu with explosives. It's not quite as effective as a monodirectional bomb, anti-personnel mine or claymore, but it still does the job. I tried to select gravel heavy zones just in case.
When the explosive tags went off all hell broke loose. The chunin ordered up their teams, the green genin started pissing themselves, it was utter chaos for about ten seconds. That was how long it took for the puppets to get into combat range, and for the Iwa nin to start reacting according to engrained habit.
The five I had underground previously came up in their flank, but Naboru Isumi matched them far too easily. That was a straight up slaughter, I couldn't do a thing to him. What the move did accomplish however was that he was distracted for a few minutes while the other puppets harassed the main body of the enemy.
I didn't need to win, I just needed to scare them and make them eat up time.
While that was all going on, the evacuations of the command area were happening to the south, while the wounded were being ferried out the north. The commanders would probably circle around and attack my rear, but that didn't matter to me.
Since I already know roughly where to look, it wasn't that hard to predict the ideal location for the hospital to evacuate from. That's where the other six puppets came in.
Iwa's medics weren't shinobi, they were academy dropouts, conscientious objectors, people with too much control but too little power to ever be useful in combat. The dangerous ones were the wounded, one or two of them might actually be a bit of a problem, but I planned ahead for that as well, having used my days of advance opportunity to soak my insect puppets in sedatives from the very hospital they were evacuating. A couple of preemptive bug bites and they were too zonked to be able to react, though it wasn't actually enough to fully incapacitate them.
There's no Ninja Redcross, no inter-village warcrimes commission, no ban on attacking medical convoys. If anyone proposed that sort of stuff to the shinobi they'd probably either laugh in their face or just be incredibly confused.
The only thing that really mattered was that the people coming out of the door were valuable targets, people far too strong for me normally, but currently weakened. So I grabbed them.
Twenty eight shinobi and fifteen medics. All sealed away in caskets and placed in scrolls. No chance of escape. The highest ranked one is probably a higher level chunin. He might not be a commander, but the intelligence he can provide will be invaluable.
… I wish I could take some of these guys apart, they're skills might be useful, but no, they were bargaining chips. Nothing really important enough to go for their bodies anyway, I only prioritized to two I took before so I could do research on making human puppets, trying with something more complicated this early out the gate would probably be a mess.
Date: Three months twelve days after awakening
Subject: Results
Tis better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Probably helps that I brought in a few dozen enemy captives on my own. I'm still being punished though.
Having to work logistical support for a while isn't a bad bargain, not for getting what I wanted. I have acknowledgement, I have my name on a report heading for the Kazekage's own desk that shows I can handle myself. I even made sure that note was made of my communications capabilities and suggestions, just in case.
All according to plan. Mwahahaha.
