Chapter 36: Intel
Southeastern Coast of Fire Country (Kamui's Point of View) (1.5 Days Later)
Kamui, Reina, and Yugao were currently camping outside of a small port town in the southeastern coast of Fire Country. The travel had been a relatively smooth process as they hadn't come into conflict with enemy shinobi. That said, they had been very careful. There were a few skirmishes they carefully avoided in the last three hours.
That was one of the reasons why this mission was so dangerous. They had to navigate a potential war zone, while traveling to the island in question. While they were still in the land of fire at the moment, there were still small mist outposts in this area. In the past, the fire daimyo and the third Hokage had allowed their existence to expedite the end of the third shinobi war; they didn't want to prolong it over 'small' matters'. Whether that was a wise decision is still up for debate.
At this point, the outposts have little function other than to monitor the borders of fire country for Konoha activity. With the limited utility to the rebellion's war effort, the only reason they bothered fighting over them was actually for the resources inside. Due to the nature of being a rebellion, the group was always running short on supplies. These smaller forts were perfect for building their forces.
Since they were going through the trouble of navigating through these locations, the two Konoha kunoichi made sure to get some value from this trip for the village. After each spotted conflict, Kamui would teleport a scroll containing the information they gathered and a set of coordinates to the Hokage. In addition, she would use earth release to bury a tri-pronged kunai at those locations, allowing her father to teleport forces there area quickly if he wanted to.
"So…." Kamui started. "It looks like we're getting pretty close."
"We are. From here, we're about an hour away from the harbor and just need to find a way to Shinobu Island. I used a boat to get here, but I doubt it's still in the place I left it; I didn't have a lot of time to hide it and rebellion mist shinobi would've gotten to it." Reina regretfully commented. She really didn't want to waste time with something as basic as traveling over water.
"That shouldn't be an issue" Kamui confidently replied. Then, a medium silvery-white wooden boat appeared a few feet away from the group; she had just taken it from her storage sash.
Seeing this, Yugao's eyes narrowed. Although it was faint, there were traces of chakra in the wood. Either Kamui spent a lot of money to buy this or….
"Well, you're clearly well prepared. This will save us a lot of time." Relieved at the news, Reina spoke. She hadn't noticed the chakra in the wood or the potential implications. Not only wasn't she sensitive enough to detect the chakra, nobody who didn't know Kamui personally would suspect the implications of a chakra-infused wooden boat from a girl who didn't like using external tools she didn't make herself.
Seeing that their mode of transportation was secured, Yugao shifted to the next topic they had to discuss before arriving on the island.
She asked, "Kamui, let's go over the sound four's expected abilities. We need to start making plans of action against them before arriving at the mission location." Kamui nodded.
Yugao continued, "The Sound Four are Orochimaru's elite unit used to conduct a variety of missions from research specimen collection to assassination. Individually, they are noted to be at the jonin level, but can take on entire units of Anbu while together. This primarily stems from their barrier and summoning seals. They're known to trap their opponents in an inescapable barrier and fight them on their own terms. Luckily, this shouldn't be a concern for us with your skill set. That said, we will work to fight them separately if possible. If we end up engaging all of them at once, we must split them up; they're better at teamwork than we are. That shouldn't be too much of a problem either though. With two reinforced shadow clones from you, it should be a four-on-four fight."
[A/N: This goes without saying, but the sound four will be much stronger than they were in the main series.]
Kamui kept silent. Regardless of how powerful she was, it was best to go into confrontations like these with as much knowledge as possible. Orochimaru is known as one of the strongest tactical fighters on the continent. There was no way his advanced unit wouldn't have a mastery in that field as well.
Reina just kept quiet and listened as well. Every bit of intel she could learn about these hateful shinobi would help greatly.
Once again, Yugao continued, "The weakest one is Jirobo. He's normally a close-range fighter who relies on exceptional physical strength to crush his enemies. He mixes a personal form of taijutsu along with earth release jutsu and an affinity for chakra-draining techniques. With him, a viable strategy would likely be to just let him absorb your chakra and kill him when he reacts." Kamui nodded in agreement. For her, chakra absorption types were the easiest to fight. Since they couldn't handle her chakra, she could use the shock from their attempt to crush them.
"The second is Kidomaru. He's their long-distance fighter. His main focus is reported to be the bow. His body has been modified likely using the Jorogumo clan as a base; like them, he was given two extra pairs of arms and has the ability to convert bodily fluids into a very powerful web. These webs can be used in both their sticky state and hardened into a metal-like substance he uses for his archery. In short, he's someone we want to take out immediately." Listening, Kamui considered this guy to be the most likely to give her a hard time.
A sniper eliminated a lot of her options, especially if they were fighting in an environment that provided a lot of cover. Then again, if she didn't care about the collateral damage, she could smoke them out pretty quickly with overwhelming power. Hopefully, her new technique would help with this guy. The good thing was, all she needed to win was to visually see him once and he'd no longer be able to use his bow.
Yugao continued, "The third is Tayuya. She's their genjutsu specialist and focuses primarily in sound-based genjutsu. Like all of them, she's proficient with taijutsu as well, but the part that makes her especially dangerous is her support capabilities. She uses a flute as a medium, so be careful of that. She's also known to use summoning jutsu to have small groups of ogre-like demons fight for her. Basically, they're meant to engage the enemies physically, while she does so from a distance. Considering your abilities, this one should be a quick kill as well."
From Kamui's perspective, this one would be quick. As long as Tayuya didn't hide well enough, she could mark her with her sharingan and eliminate her. Weak sound-based genjutsu couldn't affect her and exceedingly strong ones couldn't come close as long as she was prepared for them. With her control over vibrations, she would simply prevent any from reaching her ears. It would temporarily take out her sense of sound, but Kamui wouldn't need long to kill her.
Yugao continued, "The most powerful of this group is a pair of brothers named Sakon and Ukon. Apparently, they have a bloodline that allows them to merge with others, though they mainly use it to merge with each other. Sakon is known as the main body and Ukon is the secondary. In battle, Sakon initially starts off as the main fighter with Ukon either lending his appendages to aid Sakon or sneaking up to merge with his opponent. Merging allows them to exert a significant level of control over their adversaries. I don't know what would happen if he merged with you, but we shouldn't let that happen. For him, the goal should be to maintain your distance. If possible, take to the sky like you did during our match." That she would do. With this thought, Kamui's eyes shifted to their dragon state, stunning Reina and Yugao.
In fact, Kamui planned to burn him away with scorch release at her earliest opportunity. Although, he probably couldn't do anything but die if he merged into her. She didn't want to take that chance. Just allowing that man to violate her body like that would bring the highest level of shame to her name and honor. No, he had to die as soon as possible; she would open their engagement with his death.
Yugao shook her head at the obvious thoughts running through her student's head. Then again, she was of the same opinion. For women, the merging method of the strongest sound member would be a violation. Whether it worked or not, there's no way that Kamui would allow that pair to succeed. That said, she was curious about the change in her student's eyes. Those certainly aren't the sharingan. In fact, they bear a closer resemblance to the nine-tails's eyes. It would be wise to ask about them once they separated from Reina. She would just pretend they're village secrets if their client asked about them.
Reina didn't ask though. Her people would be joining Konoha soon enough, so it wouldn't be too late to ask her then.
"By the way…" Kamui cautiously spoke, addressing Yugao. "How did you get this level of information. Are they just really bad about keeping secrets or something?"
Yugao shook her head.
"Their master has grown bolder lately and has used them more overtly in the past year." Yugao cryptically stated, earning a nod of understanding from her student.
With that cleared up, Yugao decided to steer the conversation toward another topic that needed clarification.
"Reina, could you share any relevant information on Shinobu Island's terrain. To my knowledge, Konoha ninjas haven't been there, so we don't have too much preexisting information." Yugao explained.
"Of Course." Reina replied. "The island is heavily vegetated. There are plenty of tall trees, shrubs, swamps, etc. Basically, the island is mostly covered in swamps with tall trees decorating it. We actually had to use earth jutsu to create livable land. There's also the poison component. Almost all of the vegetation has some form of poisonous component; that goes for the wildlife as well. The snakes have venom, the frogs have poisonous mucus on their skin, the mosquitos carry mutating diseases, etc. Essentially, I'll have to give you a few pills to keep you two safe from most of them. We use them for the few children who don't inherit our poisonous bloodline."
Hearing this, Kamui and Yugao looked at each other in resignation. This sounded like it was going to suck. Swamps were no fun to navigate. Not to mention, poisonous swamps where everything can debilitate or kill you. This would be yet another boon for Orochimaru's men. Regardless of whether they were used to the terrain, they were definitely resistant to the various toxins in the environment. Kamui and Yugao…. not so much.
Reina handed Yugao a map and continued, "Here's a map of the island. From what the escapees were able to gather, we believe the sound four took control of our village and created an underground compound under it. We felt the ground shaking quite a bit after our escape and one of our scouts witnessed them entering a small rock structure that couldn't reasonably fit all of them; with that, we inferred that they created an underground facility. With your description of the four, it sounds like it could have been Jirobo who performed the jutsu." She said as she started describing specific points on the map.
"Our village is located on the northern edge of the island, bordering the toxic whirlpools and is surrounded by the Fog Swamp. The toxic whirlpools protect it from the water by emitting a poisonous mist that targets chakra itself. If breathed in, the shinobi would die within the minute. Even if the shinobi held their breath, their chakra couldn't be utilized outside of their body for fear of the infection spreading through it and following it back to the source. Our clan is immune to this poison, so it's a perfect place to live for us; outsiders simply can't penetrate that route. The only reason why the sound four managed to break in, was Ana's capture." Reina explained.
Hearing this, Yugao asked, "Basically, we're going to have to go through the fog swamp if we want to safely enter?" She really wasn't liking the fact that they had to go the long way.
Reina nodded, responding, "That is correct. The toxic whirlpools can't be mitigated through the antidotes I'll provide as it targets chakra specifically; those are targeted toward biological-based toxins. With that in mind, we'll have to enter through the western edge of the island and pass through the serpents' pit, which borders the fog swamp on its western side. Then, I'll guide you through the swamp and finally, we'll arrive at the village. With any luck, the sound four won't all be in the same place, making it easier to take them down in this terrain."
Kamui sighed and thought to herself. 'It'd be really convenient if we could fly over the whirlpools, but that would attract too much attention.'
Since the villagers were in enemy control, they had to treat them as hostages. Basically, they couldn't let the sound four know that they were coming. They could only blow their cover once the villagers were secured. It was something they discussed on the previous day during their travels.
"Can you go into detail on the specifics of those areas and any others that surround the fog swamp? With how dangerous this'll be for the two of us, it would be wise to approach this situation with additional caution." Yugao requested.
"Of course." Reina happily replied.
For the next few hours, Reina described various landmarks, species, and mysteries of Shinobu Island. Normally, these would be secrets of their clan. However, with their clan becoming part of Konoha, it wasn't necessary to keep those secrets at the moment.
[A/N: I would like to ask you guys a question. How do you feel about chapters like this one where the characters go over the enemies and terrain they expect to encounter on their missions? They're a little drier than I'd like, but I'm trying to capture how missions work for shinobi, especially during Kamui's early missions. They won't be as necessary once Kamui becomes a Chunin, but there are some elements that will obviously stay. I won't promise any big changes based on the comments received, but I would like your feedback on these types of chapters as a paragraph comment if you have any. All constructive feedback is appreciated.]
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