Northshire Valley was an idyllic little place that had a small problem with bandits, along with slightly bigger infestations of wolves and kobolds.
The raid was there to protect the children from Horde, nothing else. Besides, everyone knew that for the high level types to interfere with such minor expeditions would prevent the kids from gaining xp. So they hung back far enough to cover the youths, but otherwise did not interfere.
With rain pouring down overhead the party of youngsters dashed inside of the single building (once it had been checked, and declared 'clear of hostiles' by their protective raid) to deliver letters to the various class trainers and pick up missions, including a couple of odd jobs the mission assignment guy suggested they seek out themselves.
Oddly enough, this was very familiar from their ninja training. Shion, who had never been a ninja, got confused and wound up at the priestly trainer, who taught her a few spells. (Although, oddly, they would later learn Shion was completely incapable of learning any Shadow spells.)
Beginning their adventures, all were surprised by how slowly they gained xp, until Naruto spammed clones to their assistance. Shortly afterward the valley was lit up like a Christmas tree as spells began to go off below the trees. In short order they had piles of dead wolves and kobolds, and Millie, the vineyard owner, was among those sending the party across the bridge in the valley to clear out her bandit problem, when Naruto came to a stumbling halt at the sight of the first bandits across the bridge.
"What is it, Naruto? What's wrong?" Shion asked, having begun to enjoy this ninja stuff.
The boy gave them a smile, but it was cracked and bleak, all of the joy having drained out of it. "Uh, could we... you know... use dueling spells?"
"So we don't kill anyone?" Haku asked insightfully, then rewarded him with a rare smile. "You don't want to kill your heart, do you, Naruto?"
Furiously he shook his head, although traumatic flashbacks to his own maiming might have had a large part to do with his current hesitancy to inflict death by bloody wounds on another human creature.
Hinata laid a hand kindly on his shoulder and said in a gentle tone of voice, "We can use dueling spells, Naruto. And nonlethal strokes in close."
"Thanks." Actual shudders of relief wracked the boy's body, as he couldn't deal with too close reminders of his own ordeal just yet. Dismembered human bodies... he nearly vomited, as his own recent experience was hidden only under the thinnest of veils of 'I'm not thinking about that.'
Temari was not alone in taking note of this, not that she knew what to do about this information - yet.
Shion hefted her rather crude blunderbuss curiously. "How do you set these things on stun?"
Marshal McBride found himself buried under mountains of tied-up bandits. Even the bandit whose head he'd asked for got delivered with that head still attached to the rest of him. The Marshal wound up having to hire carts to carry so many prisoners up to Stormwind so they could be placed in the stockade.
The ninja then tromped down to Goldshire, leaping from tree to tree (Shion being carried by Haku), letters in their hands and garbed from head to toe in the best equipment the valley could offer.
Letters quickly got exchanged for more D-rank missions, and they waded into more combat.
As they engaged more wolves Hinata floated along in a euphoric cloud.
She was USEFUL!!!
She wasn't incompetent or weak. In fact, she had been a contributing member of every fight so far, at the forefront of every battle, placing herself between danger and Naruto, who'd gotten very shy of danger lately. But she had protected him, and hadn't even taken a scratch doing it!
There was only one thing marring her otherwise boundless joy. While others had been able to frequently visit convenient local trainers to learn new and upgraded forms of their jutsu, she as yet had not, the closest trainer for her 'class' being in Stormwind, too far for easy visits, and too great an imposition on everyone else for her to stop back and visit.
She couldn't make demands of them like that!
Still, her nature jutsu kept falling further and further behind. In fact, it was too far behind the others to stay useful and she had to admit that. Normal training to increase one's proficiency with a jutsu took weeks, especially with an unfamiliar element.
On the other hand, Jyuken worked perfectly.
"Oh, sorry," Hinata apologized as she'd accidentally paralyzed the lungs of one bandit. She quickly reversed the stroke before he strangled to death, letting him fall to blissful unconsciousness.
Setting off a Frost Nova, then bounding away, Naruto's breathing came uncomfortably fast - and it was not from the exercise, but from a near panic he was continually trying to fight off.
Naruto had Jennea's last bit of advice echoing through his head ever since he'd first heard it: "Remember Naruto, an inattentive Mage is a dead Mage. The biggest mistake a mage can make is not paying attention. We simply can't survive mistakes in the way more resilient classes can."
With the specter of his own near-death still very fresh in his mind (no matter how much he'd rather forget it), that lesson hit deeper than he would've liked. He was vulnerable: he could die.
He'd been trying to be hyper-attentive to his surroundings ever since. Only once he'd started trying, however, did he realize just how very bad he'd been at paying attention. There always seemed to be a new bandit or wolf he hadn't noticed. He wished now he'd paid more attention in Iruka's classes, at least that would have been practice keeping his focus on something.
"Watch your mana, keep it high." He chanted under his breath. "Take any opportunity to refresh your mana pool. A mana-less Mage is a dead Mage."
Yeah, somehow the prospect of death didn't seem nearly as impossible as it once had. The all-too-common young person's illusion of immortality had been rather traumatically stripped from him in an unmistakably clear way.
He shot off another fireball, chanting, "A Mage's combat style focuses on avoiding damage altogether, rather than outlasting an enemy through superior stamina. Slow your enemies down and run away, freeze them in place, blast from a distance. Keep the bad guys with their sharp pointy bits as far away from your soft, pink flesh as you can, then blow them up at range," he recited the mantras he'd been taught as they raced along towards their next fight, leaping between tree limbs for the extra speed.
Fighting in the valley had taught him just how hard it was to fight this way, instead of his previous style of 'scream and charge', and also how difficult it could be to completely change out old habits for more efficient ones.
But he was determined to get it right. It was only his life on the line, after all. Strike and run away was the rule.
Just as he'd resolved that, it struck him how that made combat less like he'd been taught with kunai in the Academy and more like pranks.
That thought got rewarded by a big grin.
Haku frowned, considering. Naruto's abilities kept skyrocketing, him having learned more jutsu in the last five minutes than most genin did in a year. And with him spamming clones around they kept pouring out fire and cutting a large swath through the dangerous creatures of the forest.
She was concerned, as without access to a Shaman trainer since they'd begun, her own new abilities were as they'd started, and that level quickly got left behind, before even they'd left Northshire Valley.
Learning new jutsu could be a slow process, slower working off a scroll than if you had an instructor to demonstrate the technique. Basic proficiency could be gained in minutes with the right student/instructor combo. It would not be combat ready at that point. However, an affinity could vastly speed that up, especially an affinity already mastered.
"Naruto, hold up," Haku jumped down next to her savior, pointed him at a nearby wild boar, then hugged him from behind, placing her arms over his, their bodies tight so she could get a good connection, then sent her chakra out over his as feelers; not intrusive, his chakra was so dense it'd burn her if she tried that, but just there sensing so she could intimately feel what was going on. "Could you kill that boar with frost bolts? Start with the lowest, simplest ones you have, please."
Minutes later when the group resumed their journey Haku was armed with frost bolts and garbed in frost armor, all copied from Naruto's latest versions of both techniques.
Shion was happy, as Naruto's clones carried her from one battle to the next. All they had to do was form a chair with their arms, and let her shoot things.
She was getting good at shooting things!
"Shield!" Shion called out, instantly protecting Hinata from the charge of a wild boar with a visible barrier of energy.
Of course, learning these new Priestess spells really wasn't hurting her enjoyment of the outing, any.
A knife came flying at Temari, who almost contemptuously blew it away with a protective burst of wind, following that up with an attack that sent the knife-throwing bandit flying off to smack against a tree, where three of Naruto's protective cloud of clones finished it off with bursts of fire.
Yeah, she confirmed to herself, she could get used to this.
They'd just finished off the last of the visible bandits and stopped at a farm to return some lady's necklace, the last of their current assignments, when a flying member of their raid alighted behind them, saying to Naruto about some of the loot he'd just picked up, "Is that a Hyacinth Macaw? Those shouldn't even drop in this zone."
"Why is that important?" Temari asked, while her boy companion stood confused holding the parrot cage.
"They're really rare." The landed raid member licked his lips. "Hey, you know I'd give you ten thousand gold for it?"
"Fifteen!" bid another raid member, landing.
"Twenty!" called out another.
On the march back to Stormwind, having agreed to call a short break to visit their various class trainers, and passing wagons full of passed out bandits on their way, the five young people had bags full of bags and sealing scrolls filled to the brim with everything else the forest could offer, along with some things their raid escort assured them couldn't possibly be found there (and then they often muttered something about 'bugs'), and were garbed from head to toe in so-called 'green' items that Naruto had discovered, with the occasional 'blue'.
They'd found four more of those rare parrots, and sold them all to members of their raid, netting nearly a hundred thousand gold pieces overall. All of the young ninja were happy about the jingling sound in their pockets, and five of their escort were very happy about the purple winged pets they had flying along behind them.
A good deal was one that left everyone involved happy.
As they were leaving all of the girls had quietly reached a unanimous decision to let Naruto do all of the looting from then on, as once aware that varying loot had different values he seemed completely incapable of drawing anything less than the best item anyone could possibly ask from any body he touched - and sometimes broke the laws of possibility altogether, finding something their escort assured them couldn't even be found.
"You can't just stumble across a Staff of Westfall," one of the raid had grumbled.
"Well maybe someone who had one lost it there?" Temari had suggested reasonably, only to get looked at like she was insane, or something, for suggesting that.
"I've never seen luck like his," Haku admitted, concluding her agreement of the girls' private conversation, all of them hanging in the back as Naruto, mindful of their previous disappointment over only Shion getting a kitten, stopped at a lady's house, traded a bunch of junk goods and bought them each a different kind of cat. Then, when they were not immediately as overjoyed as Shion had been over her kitten (it was hard, they were cute, but that kitten was adorable!) bought them each one of every cat that lady had available.
This desire to please them was suitably adorable, so all of the ladies were mollified.
"But, shouldn't you have a cat too?" Hinata asked, mortified that Naruto might be depriving himself.
So the boy bought a set for himself too. And it astonished everyone when the sales lady taught them all a small summon/desummon spell for their pets. But actually, it was kind of cool when you thought about it.
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(Posted Sat, 01 Jun 2013 21:13)
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