We're all waiting for Kakashi at the Hokage Tower, having learnt our lesson we all collectively agreed to be here at 9 AM. Kakashi appears in a shunshin one hour later.
He gives all of us a look before motioning for us to follow him. The inside of the tower is this weird mix between an office space and traditional Japanese architecture. It does not take long for us to reach the Hokage's office, Kakashi simply opening the door and motioning for us to enter. Inside the office we find the Hokage perched on his chair.
"Greetings. You are now shinobi of Konoha. I know this is a very sudden change for you but from now on, the safety of our village depends on you. Your mission for this war is simple. You are to infiltrate the lands of Kumogakure and cause as much disruption as you can. You are free to choose your method and targets at your own discretion. Any questions"
I raise my hand, wait for him to nod at me and ask "Can we keep any loot? Or are battle-spoils split between all active shinobi?"
Hiruzen blinks before responding "You may keep any spoils of war you encounter."
He waits for some time, probably to make sure no one had anything else to ask, before continuing. "Very well. You are to leave tomorrow morning, make sure to stock up on any supplies you require. The front desk will provide you with a stipend for supplies. Kakashi will advise you on what you require. Dismissed"
And like that we're now leaving, having received our assignment.
—
Me, Sakura and Hinata find ourselves in a shinobi store, finally able to purchase things from here. We all collectively agree to pack everything into storage seals. One seal for food and water, one for clothes, one for kunai and another for shuriken. Explosive seals we store in water-proof pouches, those apparently don't do that well inside of storage seals.
I honestly spent some time debating getting a weapon of some sort, either a spear or a sword before dismissing it. There's not enough time to become proficient with one. For swords the argument can be made that I've copied more than enough Kenjutsu to use one but knowing the moves and knowing when to use them are two completely different things.
We've made a habit of playing either board or card games, so we're also taking some of those to pass the time. Another time-killer purchase we all agree on is Fuinjutsu manuals. Can't hurt to know some.
—
After waiting for three whole hours for the cyclops to show up we promptly depart from Konoha. Out of the frying pan and into the fire we go.
—
We're moving stealthily for this one. Kakashi tells us the main danger will be when we cross the border, which we hope to cross undetected, before we can begin operating inside of Kumogakure territory.
In order to try and maintain stealth we're using ASL to talk, having been taught at the academy. 'What will we actually do in Kumo?'.
Kakashi signs towards me 'logistics raiding'.
Hinata signs 'They'll just live off of our land then won't they'.
Sakura replies 'But that will make them visible, and they'll then get attacked.'
Kakashi then gives us all an eye-smile before turning around and jumping into the trees. We're getting close to the border.
—
I'm genuinely surprised. We crossed the border one hour ago and had no one follow us. In hindsight we're probably the most qualified squad for this kind of mission. 360 X-ray vision combined with ninja dogs is not something you should underestimate when it comes to sneakage.
Unlike the Land of Fire, the Land of Lightning is a lot more rocky. The center is a giant-ass mountain range, the storms there apparently being the reason for the country's name. Our priority right now is to find a place to camp and then spend the following days looking for places to set up our hideouts. If we find any Kumo shinobi we'll attack if we can guarantee victory with no losses. According to Kakashi we'll begin raiding in earnest once we have at least three hidey-holes prepared.
-three days later.
We got five of the things prepared in the last two days, today we're raiding a minor shinobi village.
—
After I wake-up Hinata and Sakura we begin discussing our plan. Civilian's are apparently off the menu, for now, and we're going after minor shinobi villages. These are in essence groups of one or more minor clans that banded together. The armed forces of most ninja villages are actually apparently composed from these villages. Konoha is the exception rather than the rule here, Hashirama managing to unite the majority of the clans into Konoha.
I am the first to come with a suggestion. "We can start the fight with ninjutsu, I can probably blow-up the entire village with a combination jutsu, from what we've managed to scout they're like 30 shinobi tops, with two chunin and most of them being career genin.
Hinata has her hand on her chin, thinking. "I can direct you where to begin the attack, so we eliminate as many of them as possible. If they're more spread-out, how many clusters of them do you think you can attack simultaneously?"
I can make ten shadow clones comfortably. "Not any more than two, I need at least three clones for each combination jutsu, they can go into the fray and join us after they begin the attack."
Sakura's response comes soon as well "I agree, that's a pretty good plan. But what about Kakashi? What will he be doing?"
We all turn to the aforementioned degenerate that reads porn in public "I'll hang in the back, if any of your lives are in danger I'll intervene, otherwise good luck."
—
Right now me, Hinata and Sakura are hiding inside of a rock crevice. The village we're attacking is apparently called Chotengakure. Unlike the 5 great villages it looks like a more literal if somewhat prosperous village. There's a main building in the middle surrounded by around fifty houses. That's literally the entire village.
Hinata is concentrating with her byakugan active. "There's ten inside of the middle building, one of the buildings has four people inside of it. All of the others are either empty or have one or two people inside. The ones in the main building are in the North-eastern section of the building on the second floor inside of a meeting room. The ones in the house are in the kitchen, discussing what they believe their assignment will be. From what I can tell the two chunin are inside of the meeting room" Targets acquired.
I quickly form six shadow clones, making sure to keep the noise and smoke to a minimum. I quickly give Hinata a glance and she shakes her head "They didn't see anything, you're good to go". I nod and the clones set off, splitting into two squads of three.
They both use the hiding like a mole jutsu to travel unnoticed, The first group heads towards the center building. Right under the meeting-room Hinata mentioned. The second group heads towards the house with the four shinobi inside.
The first group is supposed to enter the center building, and use the following combination jutsu : Great Breakthrough into Great fireball into Earth bullet. I've taken to calling this The Great Explosion Bullet. The resulting explosion would be bigger than what I did against Kakashi, but would have less concentrated damage. Perfect for this scenario.
The second group will go into an empty house adjacent to the one with the four shinobi. Once they hear the explosion from the center they will use the same sequence of jutsu to attack the shinobi there.
We sit quietly and wait for the center building to blow up. One minute later it does, a quarter of the village destroyed along with the entire building. A second later another explosion resounds, having destroyed another quarter of Chotengakure.
We immediately get going, catching and killing any would-be escapees. Hinata informs us on the situation "All targets eliminated. Other than the fourteen another two have died. Five of them are trying to escape. The clones are fighting the leftover shinobi and winning. We split-up as planned."
Both me and Sakura nod in assent before we split-up. Hinata is supposed to prevent any of them from escaping, so that they don't have any intel on us. Sakura and I are going to join the clones.
While we're on our way two of the clones pop. One hit by an unsuspecting kunai and another having popped itself right before we reached the village in order to give us intel. From what it knew the fighting has moved onto the ruins of the center-building, most of the enemy shinobi gravitating towards it once the attack began.
Soon enough we reach the combat area. There are four clones left fighting eight of the enemy. We join the fighting with another sneak attack. I Shunsin right next to one of the enemy shinobi and decapitate him with a chakra scalpel. Sakura runs towards one of them, chakra scalpel formed. The woman she's targeting panics and jumps backwards, trying to save herself. She almost succeeds. Instead of having her head chopped off it's just her arteries that are opened.
Taking advantage of our intrusion the clones quickly up the ante, killing another three of the enemy. The three remaining survivors surrender.
-half an hour later.
We're all regrouped, Hinata managed to capture one of the would-be deserters. In total we've got four of the buggers in front of us. A middle-aged blond woman, A bald old man in his twenties, a bald grandpa and a blue-haired teenage girl. They all look to be pretty afraid right now.
I am the first to begin talking "First things first, let's make camp before we do anything else. We shouldn't linger here much"
Sakura, Hinata and Kakashi all nod in agreement and we're off. Each one of us with a captive on our back.
—
By the time we reach one of our hidey-holes it's already gotten dark outside. We begin preparing for sleep. This time Kakashi volunteers to take the night-shift again. We don't disagree and fall asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillows.
-second day, morning
Once all of us are up we begin discussing what to do with our captives.
Hinata is the first to talk "We should interrogate them for any future targets. If we know where their supplies pass we could begin hitting their logistics in earnest."
I give the captives a look "And what do we do afterwards? We can't actually let them go, and keeping them captive permanently is gonna be next to impossible. Also, grandpa over there apparently has diabetes so he's already practically dead."
We sit in silence for a while, until it is broken by Sakura "Then why not use them to practice medical ninjutsu? We're killing them either way, aren't we? Not like we have any other option"
Both me and Hinata stare at her, she looks back at us "What? Is there something on my face?".
I sigh "No there isn't, Kakashi, what's your opinion of this subject?"
He looks up from his porn and gives each of us an appraising look. "Eh, Whatever you do just make sure they don't escape, otherwise go nuts"
Thank you for your wisdom cyclops man. I look at Hinata, she shrugs. I look at Sakura "Alright then, we're going with your idea, what do you wanna test first?"
Aaaand with that the teenager just shat herself, Great.
—
The task of interrogating the captives automatically goes to Sakura. Hinata and I sit on the floor and observe. I activate the sharingan, to make sure they're not hiding anything.
Sakura gives each one of the prisoners a good probing look. The teenager's pants are still full of shit, her eyes darting everywhere in panic. The grandpa looks resigned. The bald guy's face is an attempt at a mask of resolve, but his breathing and eyes betray his fear. The blond doesn't even bother to hide her fear, but she doesn't seem to be panicking just yet.
Sakura begins talking "So here's what will happen, I will have a talk with each of you in private, if you all tell the truth I will at the very least make your deaths quick, pants shitter, you're up first." And now she's dragging the teenager with her deeper into the cave (We made this outpost inside of a cave).
I continue to look at them and examine them. I haven't noticed anything that could be a secret code or anything of the sort.
It doesn't take long for Sakura to return with the teen, who does not look any worse than she already did, so I guess she probably squealed everything. Slowly she does the same with the grandpa and bald guy, grandpa coming back unmolested and baldy with some pretty nasty wounds on his fingernails.
The last to go is the blond. Before Sakura can pick her up however she takes a deep breath "They're lying, we were all briefed beforehand on what lie to tell if we got caught". And by the looks of betrayal all of her (former?)friends are wearing, she's telling us the truth.
—
We leave Hinata with the other three captives before Sakura and I leave in order to begin interrogating the blond. She gives both of us a fearful glance before she begins talking
"I want a guarantee that you won't kill me first, i just don't want to die" Aaand she's crying now. I open my mouth to say something but she interrupts me "I can teach you our clan's hidden jutsu! Just please please don't kill me" And now she's back to just crying. I look at Sakura, she shrugs.
I look back at the blond "Allright, we'll take you with us to Konoha.". She nods "I will tell you all I know. The jutsu I will keep until we reach Konoha, I need something to make sure you won't just immediately kill me" Bugger
I look at Sakura "I'mma be right back, just wanna ask Kakashi something real quick". She nods and with that I go back to find Kakashi.
He's in front of the cave, reading porn as usual. I quickly ask him "Hey, is there any way we can take one of the captives back with us?".
He hums, flipping a page. "There's some old laws not practiced anymore that aren't repealed yet. Clans can claim prisoners of war for themselves. Since you got the Hokage to agree to you keeping your loot and are also technically the entire Uchiha clan you can just claim her as spoils of war".
Wait what? "Slavery is still legal in Konoha?"
Kakashi nods. "Yeah, what did you think the Hyuga branch family are? Unpaid interns? Usually most are kept prisoner and then ransomed away. Rarely they're kept, usually that happens when the prisoner's Clan disowns the captive for surrendering. Here take this" He puts his hand in a pouch from his vest and pulls out a sealing tag. "This should prevent her from running away, it will seal her chakra."
I take the tag, study it for a bit then look back at Kakashi "You already knew this was gonna happen didn't you?".
He flips a page "Yeah, pretty much. Do enough interrogations and you start forming profiles.".
I sigh and go to the back of the cave again, when I reach Sakura and the blond, who apparently stopped crying while I was off getting lore-dumped, I unceremoniously slap the tag on her forehead. "Yea, we can agree to that. You remove that seal there and you're dead alright? Also, before I forget to ask, what's your name? ".
She quickly nods in assent. "Hirogi Choten, i am called Hirogi Choten"
—
The other three we left to Sakura to do as she wished, when we need to deploy we'll just kill them and burn the bodies.
—
From what Hirogi told us, there's a rather large shipment of supplies heading towards the border. Pretty well guarded too. After she finishes recounting all the info she is aware of, Kakashi quickly takes over. "We can't take that shipment on our own. There's too many enemies and this time they won't all be conveniently grouped together."
Hinata raises her hand "then what do we do? do we just ignore it?" Kakashi shakes his head. "We will meet-up with the other groups and plan an attack. This is a pretty good opportunity to both gather supplies and deny them for our enemies, I'll contact the other jonin and see which teams are available, If there's not enough of us we'll have to let this opportunity go".
-next day
Hinata smiles "I win this time, my two pair beats your one pair". We're currently playing poker to pass the time, well, me and Hinata are playing poker, Sakura is off torturing the poor sods we got tied up. It's when I'm shuffling the deck that Kakashi comes over. "We got confirmation, two other teams are ready to join us. We will all meet-up at our encampment here." Hinata and I nod in agreement.
-two days later, morning
We've disposed of the prisoners, not really a good idea to keep them there. Hirogi we're just gonna tie up and hide before leaving.
It's when we're preparing breakfast, five different types of instant noodles in the same pot, that our partners arrive. The first group is made up of a Tall Jonin and a hyuga, a brunette and a short green-haired midget. The second group is composed of a grandpa jonin and three black-haired identical triplets.
We quickly introduced ourselves. The first group are apparently named Saken, Seishiki, Nakashin and Toyosine respectively. The second group's Jonin is called Jarata, and his three wards are apparently called Mehichi, Mehini and Mehisan. How creative.
When introductions are over we all proceed to go to the ambush site. For the enemy shinobi to reach their destination they must either pass through a fairly narrow mountain pass or go the long way around. Our plan basically hinges on them going through the mountain pass so we can easily ambush them. After everyone is up to speed we quickly begin traveling.
-next day, night.
We're all hiding, waiting for the enemy to pass. We've set up some traps ahead of us, we didn't set any behind in order to not tip them off premature- I catch sight of one of the enemy shinobi. Now all that's left is to wait for the Jonin to begin the ambush, this time they will be fighting with us instead of just supervising, taking on the tougher shinobi and leaving the rest to us.
As soon as I see Kakashi use Chidori (Acquired), I quickly create five shadow clones and rush towards the enemy. The first guy didn't even notice me before I chopped off his head. His friend did however, and quickly threw explosive kunai at me. I kawarimi with the last kunai he throws and proceed to split him head to toe before he can do anything else. Looking around I decide to help Mehini and Mehisan, Sakura and Hinata seemingly having everything in order.
A quick Chidori leaves the chunin they were fighting literally heartless, as he bonelessly falls over. I quickly turn to help Hinata when the shinobi she was fighting surrenders. Turning towards Sakura reveals she had just impaled her opponent's head.
—
Once the fighting is done we then search their bodies and split the prisoners, we end up with none, bad luck. We find a fairly thick stack of small sealing scrolls on the enemy jonin commander. Instead of wasting time tallying everything we just split it into three, with each group taking a third.
Afterwards we go back to our hideout. Kakashi doesn't offer to take the night-shift this time. We untie Hirogi and proceed to go to sleep. I'm taking the first watch.
-Next day, morning
This morning's breakfast is rabbit pasta, we had snatched one up along the way yesterday. It's while we're eating that I notice Hinata wincing whenever she moves her left arm.
I tap her shoulder. "Hey, are you feeling alright?"
She shakes her head "I think I got myself wounded yesterday, probably didn't notice immediately because of the adrenaline, and afterwards I was too tired."
Sakura comes over and removes her hoody, revealing a nasty cut on her shoulder. "Probably got cut from a kunai or shuriken, I'll fix that for you" And fix it she did, hovering her hand over it and completely healing the wound in around fifteen seconds.
Once we're all done eating we decide to leave and torch this outpost, can't stay in one place for too long.
—
Torching the outpost does not mean literally burning it, that would just lead them towards it. We simply pack-up and leave everything as it was before we got inside the cave. We draw straws to decide who'll carry Hirogi. I lost.
—
We're moving much further away before we make a new outpost, half a day traveling at ninja-pace. Hinata making sure we avoid any of their patrols on our way. Once Kakashi decides we're far enough away he signals Hinata to begin looking for a good spot for an outpost. She leads us to some plains with giant, bushy weeds growing everywhere. We dig a hole and make our outpost underground. Entrance hidden by the thick vegetation.
—
Once we're done unpacking and preparing everything Kakashi comes over to us. "We'll be laying low for around a week, I doubt they won't send search parties everywhere after what we did.". Time for killing time then i guess.
-next day.
Hirogi is on cooking duty, apparently she knows how to heat-up cook-ware without fire so we're removing that seal so she can cook (honestly at this point Kumo would just kill her, she's stuck with us). A look with my sharingan reveals it's some kinda weird fire release training exercise. Whilst the food is being prepared (vegetable stew) we're all sorting through our loot from the ambush. Each seal appears to be dedicated to a single item. One seal is chock-full of Fuma-shuriken whilst another is full of dehydrated vegetables. In total we got around thirty storage seals full of various odds and ends.
After we sort everything it's not long until the stew is ready so we all begin reading the fuinjutsu manuals we bought. Unlike what most fanfiction will tell you (IE: Fuinjutsu is literally just coding!), fuinjutsu at its core is actually pretty simple. You take a thing, you seal a thing then you release a thing. So an explosive seal is essentially a sealed explosion, released when the seal gets burnt.
One of the explosive seal variations in the manual catches my attention. It's apparently used to store a jutsu and afterwards unleash it when the sealing tag is destroyed. The problem there is that you can't really control the jutsu if you use it this way. A Great-Fireball would just explode in that location. Maybe I can still use this somehow?
—
Half an hour and some talks with Kakashi later leaves me with two sealing tags in my hand.One with a Great-Fireball inside and the other with a Great-Breakthrough. The idea is that these two should combine even without me controlling them and go big-boom.
-two days later.
I am sitting comfortably on the floor with my sharingan active. Hirogi is sitting cross-legged in front of me looking directly into my eyes. I'm training ocular genjutsu on her. Right now I'm trying to make her see me mirrored while everything else is normal. So if I lift my left hand- "Left"- She see's my left hand rising because I failed.
We continue doing this. Sometimes I manage to succeed, and she'll call out the opposite, other times I'll fail. Slowly but surely the amount of times I succeed becomes higher than the amount of times I fail. I don't worry about her lying to me here, any outright lie would just get instantly caught by my sharingan. Once it's time for lunch I leave her to it. By now I can succeed almost all of the time, now all that's left is to continue training until it becomes second nature.
-later that day
After lunch Kakashi gathers us up and decides to give us a lecture.
"Alright. I want you to pay attention, I'm gonna teach you how not to leave any traces of yourselves behind, you are all already doing a pretty good job out of it, but there's some mind-games involved too. Instead of leaving completely no traces it's better to leave small traces at the beginning, maybe pretend you're someone else. Instead of blowing everything with fire jutsu try using water jutsu, they'll think it's two different teams when in reality it's you."
I raise my hand "So just fuck with them?"
Kakashi nods "Essentially, I'll give you some examples and ideas now, the rest is up to you".
-five days later.
By now I've managed to get my ocular genjutsu somewhat down, hopefully I'll actually be able to use them in combat. On the seal front I've made three kunai as a test, Each with two seal tags glued to the handle, one with Great-breakthrough and one with Great-Fireball. After all, today we're going back to the old outpost, the plan is to make them assume we're still in that area.
We quickly tie-up Hirogi, slap the tag back on and hide her before leaving towards the old outpost. It's time to fight once again.
-time later
Once we're in the general area of our old base Hinata begins to direct us to good targets. The first is a group of four Genin and one Chunin. The plan we've settled on is to alpha-strike the groups silently, so no explosions, so we can catch as many as we can before we have to get the fuck out.
So for this group we quickly burst out of the earth underneath them and ambush them. I chop the chunin in half, sakura decapitates one of the genin and Hinata smacks the heads of two of the genin, instant gentle-fist induced death. The final Genin decides to try his luck and surrender. I decapitate him.
The next group Hinata directs us towards is larger, two chunin and eight genin, all sitting around a campfire. I create three shadow clones while we're still somewhat far from them. The alpha-strike goes well. Me and my clones decapitate one of the chunin and three genin. Sakura slices the other chunin's head in half and Hinata bursts the hearts of two genin. The remaining three genin we quickly gang up on and kill before they can sound an alarm.
The third group seems to be a meeting of four chunin, probably some kind of niche specialists judging by the lack of goons. Two of my clones take one of the chunin out, he managed to dodge the first clone but got his brain mushed by the second, Sakura and I kill another, he didn't get to dodge either of us, Hinata and a clone try to kill the third but she manages to dodge both, and the last one raises his hands up and surrenders. The third chunin also immediately surrenders once she finds herself in a six vs one.
We decide to take these two with us, they should have some fairly good info for us. At least we know they've probably already prepared some lies before interrogating them now. We draw straws and this time i ain't gotta carry noone, Hinata and Sakura pick-up the captives like sacks of potatoes and we skedaddle. Shame I didn't get to test those kunai.
—
When we reach our far-away outpost we quickly tie the two up and slap seals on them, making sure they can't use any chakra. I give both of them a closer look now that we can relax a little. The woman's a teenage girl, looks to be around fourteen to sixteen years old, blond and resolute. The guy's blond and looks to be around thirty, unlike his companion he looks one comment from Sakura away from shitting himself. We leave the interrogation to Sakura again, although this time I'm helping her. I should be able to decipher if they're lying or not with the sharingan. I learned my lesson.
Sakura looks at the two, seemingly indecisive, before grabbing the collar of the guy and dragging him inside an interrogation room we dug out and sound-proofed as well as we could. She opens the door and throws him inside, I enter after her and just sit down on the floor and make myself comfortable with the sharingan active.
—
Both of them tried to lie, both got severely tortured until they told the truth. Pretty sure that girl isn't gonna be able to walk ever again even if we let her go. They're apparently tracking specialists and didn't expect anyone to be able to avoid their patrols, hurray for Hinata. Some more torture makes them confirm that with this stunt we've almost certainly convinced their commander we are still in that area.
Now that we've got no more use for them they'll just be left to Sakura. Im not sure wether they would prefer the torture instead.
-next day
After eating breakfast, roasted deer, we decide to have a strategy meeting. We're all sitting on the floor, ain't got no chairs, and Hirogi is in the room with us, in case we need to grill her for any information on how Kumo operates. Sakura opens up with her proposal.
"We should probably lie low for some time again, while we don't have any problems or injuries now we should try to rest between missions. We don't want to get caught unaware because we got too tired."
That makes sense, Hinata gives a quick mhm "That's a good idea. I can use the Byakugan for a fairly long period of time, but afterwards my eyes hurt a lot if I use it for too long. Resting between missions should let us function at 100% for every mission, what do you think Sasuke?"
I think for a moment before giving my reply "I agree, it's better to play it safe and rest. This way we can also train a little between missions, learn some fuinjutsu or practice/test an idea we have." I give Sakura a long stare "And this has nothing to do with the two test subjects you got now doesn't it?" She proceeds to sheepishly scratch her head. Figures.
----
You know, this has started to feel more like some kind of fucked up school trip than a brutal war. That probably says more about me than anything else. We've just had breakfast (roasted deer again) and started playing some random board game we packed, some unholy abomination of Monopoly and Catan. Sakura is also playing with us this time, apparently she's waiting until the blond guy finishes metabolizing whatever concoction she's force-fed him.
Hirogi is also participating, we're having her play as the bank. The whip-lash she seems to experience whenever we have her help us with inane stuff like this is honestly kinda hilarious. Especially when our discussion goes from how lucky my rolls are this game to Sakura asking me whether I can help her make an instant-touch paralysation jutsu. Pretty sure the thoughtful looks Sakura keeps throwing her aren't helping either honestly.
—
I'm training genjutsu again. I've sort of gotten the hang of using ocular genjutsu by now. What's left is ironing the kinks out and to just keep practicing until it's combat ready. Hirogi is sitting in front of me in seiza, whilst I'm just sprawled over with my back to the wall. What I'm trying to do now is make her feel hot or cold. It does not take long for her to begin shivering, as soon as she does I swap to heat and she instantly begins sweating. Some more swaps to confirm I can actually do it instantly and all that's left are the more extreme tests. Time to go and bother Sakura.
—
"Sure, let's go and test it. I'm actually pretty curious myself on how that actually works" Is Sakura's instant response. We go to the captives and she grabs the collar of the teenager. I follow her into the interrogation room. Once we get in we begin immediately. She starts a diagnostic jutsu and motions for me to get on with it. I activate my sharingan and make her feel as much heat as I can. She instantly begins screaming her throat out. Five seconds later I swap to cold and she starts shivering instantly. I keep alternating for around half a minute like this until I stop. The entire time Sakura kept the diagnostic jutsu up.
She is thoughtful for a moment "I think I know what's going on under the hood. Her body isn't feeling anything, the thermoreceptors in her skin are not being activated. Your genjutsu affects her brain directly, stimulating the preoptic nucleus directly. You're essentially hijacking parts of her brain by feeding it artificial stimuli."
I mentally debate pretending to have understood "I understood like half tops of what you just said, can you repeat that in english?"
She looks sheepish "Haha, allright. You're basically forcing her to feel things directly in her brain."
Oh "Just to make sure I understood correctly, If she lacked an arm I could still make her feel pain there?'
She excitedly nods "Not only that. The implications are immense. You could directly mind-control someone with a complex enough genjutsu. You could alter their memories, adding or removing them as you wish. Regular genjutsu does not work like this. It influences the senses but does not touch the brain the same way yours does. While you can directly affect her preoptic nucleus, regular genjutsu can only affect the thermoreceptors inside of her skin."
I slowly nod, taking all of that in "I'm guessing you're gonna want to test this more in the future".
She pumps her arms excitedly "YES, we're starting now. Just please go and get Hinata too, she can probably tell us more on what's happening with her byakugan!"
Poor Hinata, she was way too shy to decline an extremely enthusiastic Sakura.
-five days later.
The day has come for us to go on another attack. Our target this time is an underground encampment of Kumo. The plan is to get nearby, create shadow clones then leave. Once we're outside of the hornets nest they'll try to blow it to high heavens. I've made nineteen more test kunai's, they should be pretty useful if they work properly.
We don't kill the captives this time. Sakura just severs the connection on their spinal cord and causes them total paralysis. This Combined with their chakra being sealed and tying them up should prevent them from trying anything.
—
We reach the outskirts of the encampment, barely visible for Hinata's Byakugan. Patrols were more and more numerous as we got closer and closer, so we have to move quickly.
I quickly create six shadow clones and hand them the kunai I made before we fuck right off. It's much later when we have almost reached our hideout that I got their memories. They all collectively began by using combination jutsu (Wind Bullet->Fire-Bullet->Earth-Bullet. I'll call it the Drilling Explosion bullet). Once the jutsu hit they immediately began throwing volleys of the kunai, to drill inside of the deep encampment as much as possible. By the time they finished, the enemy shinobi started poking out like wasps out of the hornet's nest. The clones did their best, but with the benefit of surprise lost they quickly got overwhelmed and popped one by one. Overall I'd call this operation a success.
-next day.
Today we're celebrating. We're not sure of the exact damages we've done but according to Kakashi we almost certainly dealt Kumo a very hard blow. So to celebrate our success we're baking cake, well Sakura and Hinata are, I got instantly banned when i suggested putting hot sauce in the batter. So instead I'm practising fuinjutsu. The talks I've had with Sakura on ocular genjutsu having given me some ideas. I'm trying to seal a sharingan genjutsu inside of a seal. Doing it directly was a dead end, can't use ocular genjutsu without some kind of target. After multiple dead-ends I just pull over Hirogi and proceed to try to seal the genjutsu I'm using on her. That actually ends up working.
By the time the cake is done I have five sealing tags. When I recount what I just did during our meal to Sakura she essentially confiscates them and demands we help her with testing them.
-four days later.
We begin preparing to attack another minor village, having run out of leads for targets. This involves creating more explosive kunai, some seal tags for the prisoners and, to Sakura's disappointment, liquidating our current captives. The thought of replacing them placating her somewhat.
—
The village we attack this time is called Yamagakure. It's "Hidden" inside of a large mountain outcropping. Patrols around it prove to be minimal, allowing us to easily get close to the village. We're around half a kilometer away, Hinata's Byakugan once again proving itself priceless.
"I can see the entire village from here. They have two hidden tunnels leading outside, one leads to the top of the mountain and the other leads to the foot of it. The architecture is made out of rock, so they're probably specialized in earth jutsu. Present enemy forces are composed of fifty-three genin, five chunin and what appears to be one jonin, most likely the village leader. The jonin and chunin are all gathered inside of a single room. The genin are scattered throughout the village. There is no significant cluster of shinobi other than the jonin and chunin."
With that report done we begin strategizing a plan.
My proposal is the first "We alphastrike the jonin, they are the singular most dangerous threat. While Kakashi here-" I point to mr smut addict, he waves "-would probably bail us out, we shouldn't make a habit of relying on him. So we take out the jonin, then group-up and gang up on as many gennin as we can before they can regroup. I'll send a shadow clone to each of the tunnel exits, they'll heat the rock inside as much as possible and then collapse the entrance."
Hinata nods, agreeing with me. Sakura thinks a bit before adding her two cents in "You should probably make two squads of three shadowclones, this way we'll have three total squads to hunt the enemy Genin."
I agree to that and we prepare for action. Eight shadow clones are formed, two of them rush to the exits and the other six split into two groups. Sneaking inside the village would be impossible this time, so we're planning to aim Great Exploding Bullets towards their main building. After they are fired we will immediately begin throwing volleys of our custom exploding kunai.
We sneak as close as we possibly can before we begin our attack. We rush them and the clones quickly fire off one combination jutsu while running, we all throw a volley of exploding kunai, the clones fire off another set of exploding bullets and we all throw yet another volley of kunai. On the way Hinata confirms their casualties "The jonin is heavily wounded but he has survived! The chunin are dead. Thirty-one genin are dead and fourteen are severely wounded. The buildings turned into shrapnel and shredded most of them!".
Five seconds later we've reached the enemy village. The clones start hunting genin whilst we begin to hunt the jonin, Hinata leading us towards him. "He has hidden beneath the ruins of the main building, most likely attempting to take stock of the situation.".
We rush to the aforementioned ruins, when we reach it we start throwing exploding kunai towards his location again. "He is running away!" And so we quickly begin to follow him. I don't want to risk making more shadow clones and he is too deep for us to affect with the kunai. It becomes clear what his plan is, he has discarded his village and is either deserting or trying to deliver a message about us. Either of the options make it too risky to let him escape.
Once he believes to have shaken us off he comes out of the earth. I immediately shunshin next to him and attempt to chop his head off, only for the fucker to somehow dodge my attempt all the while sporting a mangled foot. My second attempt at his life is successful. Using genjutsu once he looks in my eyes to make him feel abysmal pain allowing me to promptly bisect him horizontally.
I quickly back away in another shunshin, not wanting to risk him trying to take me down with him, just as he violently explodes, leaving a fifteen meter crater surrounding where his body(halves?) used to be. At least I managed to copy the kinjutsu he used to go boom.
Going back and regrouping with the clones reveals they succeeded in preventing all escapes and even, to Sakura's immense pleasure, captured us four captives. We resolve to try and preserve the main building if we can afford to next time, some of the villages probably have their own Kinjutsu hidden away there, like that dude's suicide explosion.
—
When we arrive the clones unceremoniously drop each of the sealed and tied captives on the floor inside of their prison rooms, we'll interrogate them tomorrow. Afterwards we drop in our beds and fall asleep almost instantly.
-next day
After breakfast (instant noodles with rabbit added in), we begin interrogating the captives. The first thing to do is take a closer look at each. A blue-haired teenage boy (looks fourteenish), a grandma, a blond woman in her twenties and a grandpa. All of them except the boy try to lie, those that did just got horridly tortured until they cracked. The noteworthy information we gathered from them can be summed up as:
-There's another convoy heading towards the border,this time much more guarded. Kakashi instantly forbade us from attacking it once he heard they deployed five jonin. Probably gonna get ambushed by an ANBU squad.
-The boy is apparently from another village! He was only there as a part of a ten-man reinforcement squad on their way to the front.
-Kumo is mobilizing more of their forces than we had expected apparently. They have started to graduate some of their young early as we have.
With those pieces of intel acquired and nothing else left to grill them about they are left in the not so tender mercies of Sakura.
-next day
While Sakura is off completing the Geneva Checklist, Hinata, Hirogi and I are playing that Monopoly-Catan fusion. Instead of just being the bank we have Hirogi actually play this time. She seems to be a lot more relaxed when Sakura isn't present, I wonder wh- Actually no, I don't wonder why that is.
During our fifth session Sakura interrupts us, calling us for some more genjutsu testing. We take Hirogi with us, her reactions are pretty funny sometimes.
-two days later
I'm trying out an idea Sakura gave me. If I can directly influence the brain with genjutsu then I probably should be able to control someone through it. The initial test for this hypothesis is simple. Get Hirogi to raise her arm. It takes all three of us five full hours before we manage to do it, all thanks to the combination of Byakugan and diagnostic jutsu working together to paint us as clear of a picture as possible of what we're actually doing.
Once we manage an arm it's thankfully much simpler to do the other bodyparts. One hour later we've essentially mapped every single muscle. The harder part is gonna be actually controlling someone remotely, since what I can actually do is just force muscle contractions while I maintain eye contact with the sharingan.
Our hope is to make a big-ass seal-bomb and have the boy carry it with him to his village. So we need to either figure out how to modify memories or how to mind-control. From what we've discovered so far we should probably focus more on memory manipulation.