-4 days later
We haven't managed to edit memories reliably yet. Which is kind of a problem because all of the captives other than the boy are brain-dead now. Their brains turned to mush after excessive memory alteration. The boys village is a bit too big for us to actually attack, they've got like three jonin permanently stationed there. So we all agree to attack another small minor village.
We'll spend the next day or two preparing. I wanna try adding earth jutsu to the kunai bombs. My idea is to add shrapnel to it, inspired by how effective the kunai actually were in the last village we attacked, where they turned the earth buildings into deadly shrapnel.
-2 days later.
The jutsu I decided to add to the new kunai ended up being Earth Release: Gravel. Using it on the sealing tag then sealing the jutsu should lead to all of that earth surrounding the tag turning into molten shrapnel when the explosion happens.
We liquidate all of the captives, except for the boy, before we start our journey to the target. Once we arrive I am instantly reminded of the first village we fought. A central building surrounded by sixty houses. Hinata quickly begins to tell us all she can see once the village enters the range of her Byakugan.
"There enemy numbers a total of twenty-seven. There is a single chunin inside of the central building, he is currently asleep. The other twenty-six appear to be genin, they are all scattered throughout the village." I nod, and we quickly come up with a plan.
—
Hinata, Sakura and I burst out of the floor next to the chunin, he doesn't get to take stock of the situation before Hinata bursts his heart. After that she gives us confirmation that the enemy is still unaware. From here we follow Hinata and slowly but surely eliminate most of the enemy Genin.
The final four genin we just knock unconscious in order to take captive. With all the enemy combatants either dead or captured we immediately beeline to the hiding place for the village's jutsu scroll, not like they can hide anything from Hinata.
I create four shadow clones to carry the captives. Before we leave I throw out a couple of the new Kunai, atleast gotta test the things. The resulting fire and destruction confirms that it does work as intended.
—
With the new test dummies sealed and tied up we just go to bed as soon as we arrive. We'll interrogate them tomorrow as usual before re-starting testing.
-three days later.
We have spent all the rest of our time getting memory manipulation down. The good news is we have managed to delete ourselves from the final test-subjects memories with success. The bad news is it has a lot of splash damage, he thought we were his allies when he saw us next. At least we don't need the boy to be very functional, we just need him to forget about us and the bomb we're gonna put inside of him.
-next day
After break-fast, tuna and rice, I begin work on the bomb we're gonna implant. Can't be too big or it won't fit inside the guy, can't be too small or it won't be effective enough. Once I have a good enough design (a mundane detonator surrounded by sealing tags) I run it by Sakura to make sure it's good enough. She approves and I begin sealing jutsu for the bomb. It's this way that I discover the amount of Great-Fireballs I can actually use in a day! The number is sixty-one.
After I use up my chakra reserves, Hinata and I start playing board-games again, Sakura joining us occasionally whenever she is bored. We spend the following two days this way. Me sealing up jutsu after break-fast then killing time together for the rest of the day.
-two days later.
I'm holding in my hand a cylinder with a diameter of three centimeters and a length of ten centimeters. There's like two hundred total jutsu sealed off inside this thing. It's honestly kinda terrifying to just hold it like this. This thing has enough juice in it to completely annihilate any of the villages we've been attacking up until now.
Once I give it to Sakura she just cuts the boy's belly open, shoves it inside and rigs it to blow when he dies. She then heals him. We then knock him unconscious, delete all of the memories of us he has, take him close to his village and set him free. Whilst all of us want to stay and watch the fireworks that's probably not a good idea, especially once the jonin begin searching the village perimeter if they decide to immediately execute him.
We all agree to take the next week off once we arrive back at base, that should give all of us plenty of time to complete our personal projects. Hinata has been keeping hers a secret, I honestly can't wait to see what she's planning. All that I know is it should fix the range issue she has with being a Hyuga and all.
-Haharu POV, Kumogakure jonin
Mutan, My husband, and I examine Shihi. Other than some bruises and very severe confusion the blue-haired teenager does not seem any worse for wear.
He does not remember what happened to him, only that he woke up near our village badly beaten. Examinations confirmed his identity, he is not an infiltrator pretending to be Shihi. We are at somewhat of a loss as to what to do from here. We cannot confirm yet whether he is a deserter, but he is not supposed to be anywhere around here. We silently decide to send him back to the infirmary for now. We will contact his superiors and find out what happened. If he is a deserter he will just get executed.
-Haharu POV, one week later.
Confirmation arrives. The boy is a deserter. He will be executed. It somewhat saddens us to have to do this, but if discipline is not maintained then all would be lost in this war. My Husband and I come to the decision not to dally, he will go to give the boy his sentence and execute him on the spot, that should prevent any future issues.
It is five minutes later when all the windows in our house burst and the village alarm siren sounds that we realize we were fooled. After we all collectively manage to put out the fires and tend to the wounded we begin to analyze our damages. Two hundred casualties in total, of which one Jonin, The majority are either dead or dying. Thankfully Mutan is unscathed. A third of the village has been turned to rubble, and another third into uninhabitable ruins.
Whoever is responsible will be found. And they will pay.
---
Hinata is playing Go with Hiragi, Sakura is trying to merge circulatory systems and I'm reading the Kinjutsu scroll we nabbed. There isn't anything particularly interesting inside of it, the most interesting thing being some sort of primitive form of A's lightning armor. While that sounds cool it's really not, what the jutsu essentially entails is using lightning release to forcefully contract all of your muscles, which is likely to Break/Crush your bones and literally chop off your own blood vessels from the force of the contraction. It's mostly useful as a last resort, which makes sense considering it's supposed to be a kinjutsu.
After learning mostly everything useful inside of the scroll I decide to just keep the thing instead of burning it. Sealing it inside one of our many storage seals. With nothing else to do I begin spectating Hinata and Hirogi's match with the sharingan active, atleast gotta get those daily sharingan hours in. When Hinata loses we swap, with her spectating and me playing.
-two days later
I continue staring at the unholy abomination that Sakura has managed to make this time. She's connected all the major arteries of two of the currently brain-dead captives. Apparently this is supposed to be some sort of prototype for first aid... Somehow.
-next day
In the years before the war I had mastered wind release, the problem was that I have not really had either much to use it with or opportunities to use it. Combination jutsu are just way too effective to use when starting combat. It's because of this that I decided to try and make a wind-release chakra scalpel. There's no kill like overkill after all.
I form a chakra scalpel and stare at my hand with my sharingan. When I turn a small amount of the chakra into wind chakra it starts leaving cuts in my hand so I just turn it off. This might take a while. Further attempts prove somewhat more fruitful. My breakthrough comes when I try using a thicker layer of chakra and turning only the outer layer of it into wind-chakra. The chakra under the outer layer protecting my hand from the blender on top of it.
Some quick tests quickly reveal that it's also much sharper, cutting even through kunai like butter. Now to practice this until it becomes second nature before I start putting blenders around my hand in fights. All that is left is to heal all of those cuts before either Sakura or Hinata begin lecturing me. Imma call this the Wind-Scalpel.
-three days later
In between practicing the Wind-Scalpel I practice another idea of Sakura's for ocular genjutsu. We're calling it the GSSPFAFF, or the Genjutsu of Simultaneous Shitting, Pissing, Farting, Adrenaline, Fight, Flight and et cetera. The name probably clued you in on what it does. The idea is to screw someone over as much as possible with a single glance. Inelegant but effective.
During this time Sakura also manages to create an instant-paralyzation jutsu. Now she can just touch someone and make them go limp. Only problem is that if she loses touch the target instantly regains all motor function.
-one day later
According to Kakashi, a team needs someone to create some false trails for them. So we decide to go hunting. Instead of looking for minor villages we will go into an area and begin eliminating patrols, ideally disposing of the bodies as well.
When we reach our destination we just let Hinata guide us towards easy targets. If there are none we just roam randomly. The first target is interesting "There's a wounded jounin traveling with three heavily wounded genin." Probably got into a fight and are going to get medical attention. "I say we take them on, everyone else agree?"
"Yep"
"Yes"
And with that we're off to ambush them. "The jounin's left arm is wounded, he appears otherwise healthy. The genin are heavily wounded. One is being carried by another, the one who is carrying him is missing an arm and the final one is limping heavily.".
I grunt "So the genin are dead meat, the only real threat is the jonin. I'll make six shadow clones. Three of them blow-up the genin and the other three the jonin. We can then jump the jonin."
Sakura and Hinata both agree, so I created the six shadow clones.
-
The genin, surprise surprise, don't react in time. They are all instantly turned into meat-paste and dispersed everywhere. The jonin manages to dodge the combination jutsu but stumbles some when all nine of us jump him.
He dodges Hinata's lunge, my kick and Sakura's scalpel swipe. The clones don't fare much better, with him dodging all and popping two, one with a punch and another with a shuriken.
After my kick I try to take a swipe at him, he dodges and kicks Sakura in the stomach. Sadly for him Sakura briefly touched his leg and paralyzed him for the brief moment she could, leaving him off-balance.
Hinata takes advantage of it and takes a chakra-scalpel swipe at him. He partially dodges, only getting his wounded arm chopped off instead of being bisected. I quickly take another swipe, towards his legs this time. He partially dodges still and only gets a flesh wound.
Hinata and I take a step back, letting the clones have a go at him. Two of them lunge at him in an attempt to force him into the attack of the third and fourth. He dodges their lunges, grabs them and smashes them into the third and fourth clones. During that exchange Hinata and I both throw exploding kunai at him. One of them he dodges, the other hits him in his shoulder and proceeds to turn him into meat-paste.
Checking up on Sakura reveals she is slowly healing herself. Apparently the kick shattered five of her ribs. She groans "My condition isn't critical. I took some painkillers and I'll manage to heal myself fully when we get back. Just please burn the bodies so we can leave". We nod and go burn the bodies. I'm ashamed to admit we only realized that there's no bodies when we actually arrived at the combat zone. We had turned all of them into literal paste. As a compromise we just burn the paste wherever we find any. We probably got most of it.
When we're done I pick Sakura up and we proceed to go back to our outpost. If the fucker had looked in my eyes this would've been much easier.
—
By the time we get back to our outpost it's not yet late enough to sleep, so we just pass the time with board-games after we patch ourselves up.
-Next day, morning
We're all too sore to actually do anything productive. Moving hurts. We spend the day playing card games. Breakfast this time is rabbit stew.
-Mutan POV
Research has illuminated us. The most likely suspect is the same person who attacked our hidden encampment. The jutsu used in both attacks similar. Seals were used in both of the attacks. The person who attacked it is almost surely the same as the bomber.
According to reports the attacker was very young, black-haired and had dark eyes. All that is left now is to research who fits these criteria among the Konoha forces.
---
We've just finished eating breakfast and started playing whatever board game we found first, which ended up being Go. Sakura, Hinata and I are playing, having roped Hirogi into playing with us. Kakashi is off reading smut as usual. While playing we're making small talk.
Sakura looks at Hinata. "You know, I've been thinking about us lately, about how much we've changed since the war began. You used to be so shy we could count your words"
Hinata thoughtfully hums "It's something I also think about sometimes, I remember worrying so much about everything, now all I want is to just want to finish every mission with all of us alive."
Sakura nods "Yeah. If you'd told the me from before what she was going to end up doing, she'd probably scream in horror."
A quick look at Hirogi reveals she is trying to pretend she isn't paying attention. I'm not sure whether she is trying to fool us or herself honestly. I hum before adding my own two cents in "Pretty much. It's one thing to know intellectually that what you're training for is war, it's another thing entirely when you actually go to war."
Hinata places a piece "I worry sometimes, that one mission I'll miss something, that one of you will die because I didn't pay enough attention." She gulps. "Can we please change the subject to something lighter?"
Sakura grins "If you insist. Are you reading Kakashi's book with your Byakugan?"
Hinata instantly turns into a tomato "... No.".
I decide to save her "Hey Sakura, How does your instant paralyzation jutsu work? Think you can explain it to me? Im curious"
Hinata sighs in relief and throws me a thumbs up once Sakura begins yapping the long-winded explanation of how the mystic palm can anesthetise and how to overload that part of it.
I let her yap some, before I interrupt "English please, we don't speak that language"
She sheepishly rubs her hair "The mystic palm jutsu can substitute for anesthesia. You just need to isolate that part and use as much chakra as possible"
Hinata adds a piece, activating her Byakugan. "Can you show me how that works? I'm curious"
Sakura nods and taps Hirogi's shoulder. Hirogi instantly falls over bonelessly. Honestly reminds me of those live-leak videos of people dying, the way she just falls over. Once Sakura removes her hand Hirogi slowly rises back up, trying to keep her breathing in order.
You know, if you told me before the war that I'd end up a slaver, I would have just laughed at you. Now that we all have killcounts in the high double-digits it's slightly less funny.
I give Hirogi an examining look. Honestly she's not bad-looking, I'd probably even call her pretty if she could freshen up some. If we didn't attack her village she'd probably have lived a happy life, gotten married and had kids. Now she's basically our fucked up team pet.
Reminiscing about all of this leads me to a troubling realization. I regret none of it. Not the killing,not the torture and not the slaving. This should probably worry me more than it does. All it makes me feel right now is indifference.
Sakura's loud groan pulls me out of my thoughts. Their game is finally over, Hinata having won by a hair's breadth. I swap with Sakura and we reset the board.
We continue playing, making small talk and teasing each other like this well into the night.
-two days later
I have a hypothesis. Consulting Sakura and Hinata reveals it's something we should probably have thought of earlier. Teaching Hinata the shadow clone jutsu proves my hypothesis correct. Shadow clones can use the Byakugan.
We spend some time debating the uses of this, quickly arriving at the easiest to implement plan. Make giant-ass seal-bombs and have her clones sneak inside of Kumo caps, villages and encampments then set them off. I then spend the following three days making another bomb. Once it is complete Hinata makes a shadow clone. The first thing CloneNata does is taking the bomb and leaving. One day later Hinata gets the memories from the shadow clone.
It tried to sneak inside of a very large enemy encampment situated on the border. Right when it was about to enter the alarm went off, bad luck led to someone seeing her. Once the alarm sounded the clone just set the bomb off.
This was probably a success. Repeating this is going to be more difficult now however, since they are going to be on the lookout for things like this in the future.
-four days later
We're packing up. We've stayed a bit too long in one place. We're not destroying the outpost however. Before we leave we'll rig this place to explode to high heavens as soon as someone moves inside of it.
After packing up and picking Hirogi up we quickly set-up the trap. We spread proximity mines throughout the outpost, if someone comes inside they'll go off and hopefully activate the seal-bomb we prepared.
In order to throw anyone off our trails we go further away this time. I come with the first proposal. "We should move closer to the border, that will allow us to influence the conflict more directly"
Kakashi flips a page "No, Choose something else, you're not yet prepared to go there. When you are, I'll let you know and we'll go, until then we're not taking any unnecessary risks."
Hinata raises her hand "Then why not move even deeper inside of the land of lightning? we can go past Kumogakure, that way they won't be able to afford to send as many patrols after us."
Sakura nods "That's actually a really good plan. I'm in favor"
Kakashi also agrees "That's a really good plan, well done Hinata" he then rustles her hair, Hinata smiling shyly.
I also provide my agreement "Let's do that then. The shinobi villages there will also be more likely to be much less defended than the ones closer to the border, where the conflict is."
Hinata brings up another good point "We should also avoid attacking anything on our way there. Sasuke can create shadow clones to continue attacking enemies in this area while we are traveling. That way we should throw them off for quite some time"
We all nod in acknowledgement. With everyone in agreement we put our plan in action. I create nine shadow clones, they group into groups of three each and promptly leave. Traveling that far will take us around two to three days.
-Haharu POV
-1 day after Hinata bomb
The bomber can be none other than Uchiha Sasuke. He is the only shinobi of Konoha that fulfills the profile of the attacker. Expert in ninjutsu (sharingan almost certainly active), proficient in seals, skilled in Taijutsu, young and black-haired. The only one who can fulfill all of the requirements is him.
Now all that is left is to locate him. Reports show that he must still be in the area, another similar bombing has taken place right next to one of our main encampments. Thankfully casualties proved minimal, with the large encampment keeping a large perimeter empty, a practice that should be implemented much more.
Hunter-nin will be stationed near any potential targets, with orders to follow him and locate his hide-out.