3 months into becoming a gennin, i get my first C- Rank mission. It is an escort mission, escorting a merchant to Sand village. The only reason this is considered only a C rank mission is because they are considered an ally village.
I nudged my team to take on this mission as I'm very curious about the sand village. It's the village where Bella got poisoned and had to amputate both her legs. She has many contacts there.
Because of my contacts with the root, i even have access to some black markets. I will meet them at the sand village.
Our journey to sand village was filled with sights and treacherous terrain, but fortunately no combat. When we finally got there, we were asked to stop at the wind nation's capital city.
From here on, sand ninja will escort the merchants to the sand village, while our diplomatic post will give us another merchant to escort on our way back. It will take a few days, so i go exploring.
I approach one of the contacts that was common between root's black market information and Bella's past as an international merchant.
It's a popular blacksmith. I ask him for a private meeting to make a custom piece for me. All that money I spend, just to get a private meeting with the guy. I better get some great custom weapon from him as I discuss the black market with him.
I have saved a lot of money from d rank missions. I don't have any expenses, since I still live at the orphanage. I even have secondary income from the vet clinic. While hinata and kiba hve taken over some of my previous roles, I can still contribute significantly every time I go there.
Anyway, for my custom weapon, I ask him to make me his best fuma shuriken ( large). I have seen characters use it as melle weapon, ranged weapon, shield, and even utility like hiruzen using a large shuriken as hand glider.
I want one with all these features, which means that the shuriken will have to be as big as my body. But that really makes it a hassle to handle. So instead he will make 2 fuma shuriken, the size of my torso each. To function as a hand glider, I'll have to use both like wings.
I even introduced the blacksmith called Dara to my bird Twi, to base the shuriken on the magpies wings. I had left my other birds Chi and Ki at the orphanage to take care of younglings, but had brought Twi with me to this mission.
While he was working on my fuma shuriken, i asked him about the black market here, what kind of stuff was available to buy. I told him that i was interested in anything related to puppet arts of sand village.
He said that's not possible, atleast at any wind nation black market. Some other black market may accept a information mission for sand village, but not here.
I ask him that I'm even interested in any civilian/non ninja puppet arts. He tells me that the wind nation has many and varied puppet culture, even among civilians.
I ask him to help me get anything he can get his hands on without raising alarm. Toys, antiques, scrolls or even tools.
The next day, i go to collect my fuma surikens. The blacksmith was also able to get some common toy puppets. He even got me a guide for a dragon festival dance, where multiple people control a giant serpentine dragon from inside it.
Another day goes by and we get another merchant to escort back to leaf village. The journey back is the same as before, but I use any free time to practice with my fuma shuriken. I can use it as a weapon and as a shield, but it will take a lot more wind chakra proficiency to use it as hand glider.
Back in Village, i hand over the puppets to Bella, she had been very curious about them. She has a personal grudge and curiosity against sand village in particular. She had lost her legs to poison from a puppet specialist of sand village.
She wanted to use the mechanisms from puppets to build prosthetics for her condition. I meet up with Hinata and introduce her to our prosthetics project.
Hinata has been working at the vet for a month now. She has compiled her own byakugan based notes and drawings on inner workings of various animals. She is mainly interested in biomechanics of different animals for taijutsu she's been developing with me .
Their intrests have even started bleeding into each other. Bella's lack of legs make her a case study in helping figure out what role legs play in various movements.
In just a month since I brought the puppets back, they have already created prototype prosthetic legs inspired by a crane puppet and movements of a landbound Magpie birds.
While walking and standing are passive features of the prosthetic, this one can even kick with it by pulling a string that comes to the belt of the user.
It takes a while to get proficient with it, but within 3 months of developing the first prototype, bella can already dance with it.
Because of hinata's byakugan being able to see individual muscles, she and bella were able to create puppet like prosthetics, where strings, springs and cables replace muscles and joints ,while wood and metal replace bones.
Ever since the first prototype, they have been trying to turn the prosthetic into something battle ready. If they can create something like that, they could be looking at a lot of money.
Hinata has taught Bella some of the basic fighting moves. While Bella is not a ninja and can not learn ninjutsu, there is no such restriction on non chakra based taijutsu when it comes to civilians.
I encouraged them to look towards the dragon dance puppet show, where 4 dancers control a sperentine dragon. I got it from the wind nation, where it is practiced and performed by acrobatics monks.
In that perticular village, the dance is more similar to cheerleader performance where couple of people throw a prison in the air, while that person is doing backflips and lands safely bedcover if teamwork.
In its simplest terms, it's your teammate pushing you to give your punch more momentum. But when it comes to practical application, it is as complex as different individual muscles reshaping to perform a movement as a whole.
Since Bella couldn't generate force from her artificial legs directly, she decided to try to develop a fighting style where she could borrow that lacking power form allies, or offer her own little bit of power to an ally.
The style hinata and bella ended up developing was truly something beautiful. It's like in those Spy romcom movies, where the couple use each other as melee weapons. Like when a hero twirls a heroin like a bo staff, such that her legs hit the villan.
All of us recognise that in most scenarios, individuals are better of fighting targets seperately, but this style forces on focused strike. It is meant to overcome overwhelming odds.
Is one punch of 900kg force better than 2 punches of 500kg. ? . Rarely, but it does come up.
What's funny is that whenever you are facing something powerful enough where this fighting style would be useful, the standard instruction for most ninja would be to run away.
But this fighting style is still a game changer if it can be spread to the masses. As a ninja, facing death is a matter of when, not if. It is a fighting style that allows 2 or more ninja to better take on challenges above even their collective competence.
It's an overall increase in Strength, Reaction and Reach. While they were still developing it, my team got the offer for chunin exams. Our Sensie recommended us not to, since next year, the chunin exam is in the leaf village, where we want to show the most power .
I encourage my team to still take on the exam as a challenge. This might be a great way to see where we stand in the world.
Once I framed it as a challenge, both lee and tenten become much more competitive and agreed instantly.
We filled the form and handed it to Guy Sensie. He was hesitant, but a bit of youthful convincing from Me and Lee sealed the deal.
I introduced guy Sensie and my team to Hinata and Bella 's taijutsu project. The project will now go much faster because of involvement of Guy Sensie. His understanding of taijutsu is incomparable.
To demonstrate the power of this style of taijutsu, we take everyone involved to a training sight. Here Hinata stood with bella, hand in hand. Bella was a bit behind Hinata and was standing on her prosthetics.
Once everyone is there. I ask them to proceed with the demonstration. Hinata swings Bella's torso as if she were a flail. While still being propelled forward by Hinata, Bella charges up a pucnch while preparing herself for safe landing. Bella hits target for decent bit of damage.
After her punch conncts, she pulls on Hinata as she tries to stay balanced on her legs. Hinata uses this momentum to charge forward and strike with her gentle first.
While Guy Sensie is contemplating this fighting style, Hinata is already helping bella take care of her injuried hand. With this style, one can end up throwing a punch stronger than the recoil they can handle.
Guy Sensie instantly sees all the drawbacks and temptations of this fighting style. The fighting style is like a chain whip. The more links in the chain, the longer the chain, the greater force it will generate with a whip .
Guy Sensie decides that it is worth our time to learn and develop this fighting style. It can be of huge help in upcoming chunnin exam .
While our personal fighting style will remain the same, developing this fighting style as a group Will further develop our teamwork and offer a strong way to charge each other's attach or to defend each other.
I imagine tenten throwing me as if I'm a shuriken, or throwing lee as if her were a javline. Lee and myself can do some combos together, where we use each other's momentum to keep the enemy staggered. It's like when nunchuck flows from one attack to other.
By the time we are about to leave for sand village, we've developed some of the basics of this fighting style. We named it COILING LINK STYLE.
Hinata and Bella greet me as we are heading out. I thank them for their help in the past month and I greet them goodbye as we leave the village for the exam.
I even took all 3 of my birds this time. Tenten has trained them with scalpels enough that they can cut fruits and vegetables. But their main roles are still as messengers and scouts.
We reach the sand village without much trouble. Despite the temptations of wanting to look at different things around the village, i managed to stay in the room till the first test.
We arrived at our attending spot an hour before we were supposed to. As we were checking out our competition, we got called in for the written exams.
Both tenten and I will be able to take on any written test, but lee will struggle. We already had plans for things like this. I can twitch my ear, and he can traslate my twitch to morse code. Although our communication would be slow, it was enough to get it through the first exam.
For the second exam, we were supposed to deliver one huge cow per ninja, to another nearby village. With limited seats for the finals, First 8 to submit their cow to the village chief there would recive seats.
Before we are asked to choose our cow and get on the start line, i talk with Lee and Tenten about using coiling link techniques to add speed to our cow each.
Although the cows aren't trained for this, this fighting style was developed with the idea that the final link can get the benefit without training, as long as there is basic cooperation.
We formed a formation at the start line. The cows are in a triangle formation with one cow in the front and two behind it. I am between left and center cow, while leaving is between right and center cow. We are holding on to our adjacent cows on left and right by their horns, while both our hand is on the center cows's behind.
My birds will act as patrol scouts, while tenten will act as our bodyguard, so that we don't have to break formation to fight.
With speed added from both lee and me, our team reached there first, securing 3 seats in the finals. We covered 2 days worth of distance in a single day, even reaching the village before nightfall.
The next morning, another guy arrived. It was a brute from sand village named Hulk. He literally carried the cow on his back. My birds report to me that the remaining 4 seats might see more competition, as remain teams are coming across each other.
Easiest way to disqualify your opponent is to kill their cattle. This exam really tests your capabilities as escort and bodyguard. My birds report to me that most remaining teams are now comming across each other and fighting. It's unlikely that we will see another team arrive today.
My birds report many tragedies that my opponents face. Teammates betraying each other, stealing each other's cow at the last moment if their own dies. Other teams put together everything to make sure atleast one of their members reach the finals.
Finally, Next morning, the remain 4 seats are filled. Now we all have 2 months to prepare for finals. Our team is the only team where all members made it to the finals. This got us a lot of recognition, specially considering that we were the first to finish the second test.
When we reported to the Hokage office, the old man showered us with praise . First year gennin team dominating the chunnin exams was unheard of.
The hokage was specially pleased with our Teamwork and asked us a lot of questions about the fighting style.
He was so intrigued that after finding out about about it's creators, he called hinata and Bella to come join us in the meeting.
Bella showed him the festival dragon dance scroll that was the foundation of this taijutsu. She explained how she was studying different puppets to design prosthetics.
She explained that the base of the fighting style is to become a puppet and let your teammate manuvere you. While you are being used as a puppet, you your own strength to enhance the movement and force .
She explained that you could either consider your teammate a puppet or a weapon to assist their own movement. And the one being used as puppet or weapon can use another teammate as a similar tool, adding one more link to the COILING LINK TAIJUTSU .
The drawbacks were obvious. A ninja was giving up their own opportunity to attack, to instead enhance someone else's attack. But it adds further in terms of battle mobility and gives better dodge options.
Guy Sensie further added that just practicing this fighting style is one of the best teamwork excersize he has ever seen. It forces you to understand your and your teammate's limitations and strengths.
It also forces you to practice locating your teammate's position relative to you at all times, to be able to use their help or to help them.
After the meeting, as we are leaving, the hokage asks me to stay behind. Guy Sensie gives me a thumbs up as he and my team leave me behind.
The hokage tell me that all 3 members of team 10 are in chunnin exam finals, Guy Sensie can't train all three. He already had a deal with his rival kakashi, that if all members of team 10 reach the finals, then kakashi will train one of us.
The hokage tells me that i can either choose to take on kakashi as my Sensie or alternatively, i can become Hokage's decipile. As hokage, he can't really leave his post to teach me much, be he can guide my training from his office itself.
I still choose hokage sama, leaving kakashi to train tenten. The hokage has even said that he will sponsor my training for chunin exams by issuing missions for jonin to train me. He would still have to spend a decent bit to attract jonin.
I instantly request a teacher to help me with wind chakra and implementing it into my weapons. The Hokage hooked me up with his son Asuma Sarutobi . Asuma specialises in using wind techniques to enhance his blade.