Chapter 38: The Tea Cup Conflict

With the individual exams completed, we had a couple days off before the main event of the promotion exams: the war-games. For this year, we were recreating the Tea Cup Conflict, which had occurred a few decades before. Despite its name, the conflict was a real mess that culminated in a three way civil war.

The first side in this war was the teenage heir to the Daimyo’s seat for Tea Country. He had been usurped by his uncle following the previous Daimyo's death, and was spirited away by a group of loyal ninja clan members who were his retainers and guards. With him were his two younger sisters and wife. His wife was a noblewoman from Fire Country, and a distant relative of Fire's Daimyo (the one before the lord at the time of the exams). Between this, an old treaty's semi-loose language and the usurper's distaste for Fire Country, the Fire Daimyo decided to send a detachment of ninja to assist his “Royal Cousins in their efforts to regain lawful control of the great nation of Tea.” The heir's forces were concentrated in the North, especially in the semi-mountainous, mostly undeveloped forest region where Konoha's guerrilla ninja slaughtered any of the usurper's forces that trespassed.

The second side was, obviously, the usurper (or new Daimyo, depending on your point of view). While a bit of a bastard, he was a competent military leader and diplomat. He leaned towards a greater reliance on longer distance trade via nations like Sea rather than being a client of Fire, and was in talks with Wind and River countries for support. While there were some rebels still hiding out with his nephew and a bit of grumbling, he did have control of the military forces and the lawful apparatus of government. His main problem was not, in fact, his nephew. Rather, he was dealing with a major rebellion in the South.

This brings us to the third side. The Southern rebels. A fairly progressive bunch, their leadership and funding came from a wealthy coterie of merchants and landowners, with a few lesser nobles sprinkled in for good measure. They were trying to take advantage of the situation to secede from feudal control, bringing the most productive and profitable parts of the country with them. While this faction had a lot of money, and a fairly large population base, they were not as competent militarily. They relied on mercenaries and hired ninja, typically not from any great village but from the clans that had yet to join a village. They lacked the elites of the heir's Konohagakure forces, or the leadership and professionalism of the usurper's army and retainers. They did, however, have fairly large numbers of battle-hardened troops at the lower levels, even if their discipline and morals were often lacking.

The part of the conflict that we were copying was the end of the war. Historically, the usurper had captured the heir's sisters and wife, and had given him three days to surrender himself. An infiltration specialist from Konoha managed to kill the usurper with a teacup during a tea ceremony (hence the Teacup Conflict for a name). With the usurper's death, the heir was able to re-take command of the legitimate forces much in the same way that Napoleon did after returning from exile, and then proceeded to reinforce them with his resistance fighters. The newly unified army, previously being pushed back, managed to make a major reversal. Simultaneous assassinations of Rebel political leaders by loyalists and a large offensive broke the mercenaries, and within weeks of the usurper's assassination the war was basically over except for some mop-up.

Historically, the civil war was interesting for a few reasons. Most applicable to Konoha though was a shift into allowing more women to fill combat ninja roles, even though it had been an infiltrator that accomplished the assassination. As a side note, a young (at the time) jonin called Hatake Sakumo was the second in command of the heir's Konohagakure forces, and made his name in the conflict.

For our exam the war-games were meant to represent these last days of the conflict. Jonin and chunin candidates were divided into the three teams, in roughly equivalent numbers to the historical situation. Commanders were allowed to assign a certain number of troops to special zones including the Usurper's Command Post (where the hostages were held), the Rebel Command Post (where “assassinations” would remove a percentage of the Rebel forces) or the Heir's Camp. The rest were deployed in the “general combat zone” to duke it out.

The general objective was victory, but each team would be judged by the watching judges on how well they achieved their sub-objectives. Candidates could get points for everything from enemy kills, to changing sides to the winners after their side's leader was “killed”, to managing to avenge their leader. Those rules more than anything drove home the fact that this was a ninja exam to me.

The exam limit was five days. Unlike the chunin exam in Naruto (the show), this was meant to simulate warfare, not replace it. Blunted weapons were used, as were “safe” poisons. Highly damaging techniques were meant to be aimed just a little bit away from the “enemy” when possible. General soldiers were simulated by examiners specializing in clone techniques. Judges were responsible for calling people out as “dead”, as were individuals themselves. Cheating on that was considered to be lying to a superior officer, and could be grounds for some fairly nasty punishments.

Our unit was assigned to the Red Team, the heir's forces. The usurper's team was represented by a blue sash, while the southern rebels had white sashes. We were interviewed during the down time between the individual exams and the war-games by the Red Commander, a jonin called Nara Shikata who was a former legion jonin. He was a good pick for something like this; he was used to working with conventional military forces, and focused on being a strategy, guerrilla and counterintelligence specialist rather than a heavy hitter himself. As a legion jonin though, he would have done little to command larger formations of ninja, and was restricted to mostly supporting conventional operations rather than managing special forces operations themselves. I suspected that this exam was partially to test his ability to command larger groups of ninja, especially in the kind of skirmishing warfare that ninja practiced rather than the more straightforward combat seen in the Daimyo's army.

We met our temporary commander in a tea shop on the edge of the Nara lands. We were shown in by one of his adjutants, and with a bit of a grin at the “life of a ninja” moment, I noticed a screen of subtle guards, likely trying to avoid ninja from the other teams from spying on our preparations. He was sitting behind a table with tea and snacks. The adjutant bowed and left, leaving us in the room with Shikata and an examiner who was sitting off to the side. As the examiners were technically “invisible” for the purposes of the exam, we weren't meant to acknowledge them. Shikata seemed to be in his early thirties, and had the typical fit and lithe form shared by most ninja, as well as his fair share of wrinkles from the weather, and small scars on his hands from training with blades.

At a guess, he had put in a full twenty years’ service as a ninja assigned to the legions, and taken the opportunity to move over to Konoha's village command structure with a half-pension. He looked professional enough; I could sense that he was reasonably powerful and had a good control of his chakra. A legion jonin was typically the top ninja out of an entire legion battle group, which would normally include a little over sixty genin, ten chunin and a tokujo or two. Under normal circumstances, they would work their way up the ranks. Considering casualties and transfers out, this meant that Shikata was likely in the top fraction of a percent of the ninja assigned to assist the Daimyo's forces (though his clan connections would have helped him achieve promotions). Compared to someone like Sakumo though, he was a cat next to a tiger.

Shikata already had our service records, which included our performance in the most recent exams. He motioned for us to take a seat. I sat across from him, with Sachiko and Yasu on my right and left. We exchanged greetings, and he served us some tea and placed the snacks, a set of rice cakes dusted in sugar, in front of us.

“You represent quite the problem for me, Uzumaki-san. Beyond the main objectives of keeping the heir “alive” and winning this wargame, we have two main secondary objectives. Kill the usurper and rescue the hostages. Of course, our enemy knows this too. I have to balance the troops assigned to distracting the forces hunting for us, retrieving the hostages and killing the Usurper, and preparing to assist or destroy the Usurper's forces in the field.” He paused for a sip of tea. “Can you think of how you might be a problem for me?” I took a moment to think, then answered.

“It's a combination of my power, my lack of proper battlefield experience, age, and my political visibility. I'm strong enough that if you don't make the best use of me, it'll hurt your judgment from the examiners, especially after I managed to take down the White Fang in my Kenjutsu exam. On the other hand, some of my strongest abilities are either too lethal, or, like my Death Experience, don't discriminate between friendly versus enemy forces well enough. While I've extensive experience leading a chunin cell, I haven't led larger units, and we tended to take “elite police” type operations rather than military ones. Further, no matter how strong I am, there are genin in this that are older than I am, which hurts my ability to give commands. My status just means that people will be paying even more attention, and I could probably make trouble for you if I were upset.”

“Exactly. So, what might you do in my position?” Fucking Nara, and his Socratic method. Then again, it was pretty clever; if he could get me to come up with his solution, then everyone would be happy and I wouldn't be able to bitch and moan afterward.

I thought for a few moments, then decided to be a bit of a smart ass. “I'd likely ask the young potential jonin how he thinks he should be employed.”

The Nara gave an amused grin at my cheek and motioned for me to elaborate.

“If he agreed with my plan,” I continued, “then at the least I'd be insulated from blow-back. If he had a better idea than I originally had, I'd be able to use it. And, at the worst, I'd have a better understanding of his skills and how he thinks.”

Still grinning, Shikata nodded. “Good. So far, we agree then. So, how should I best use you?”

“You should assign us the strike against the Usurper's Command Post.”

“Alright. Convince me why.”

“We're the best unit for the job. You should know from our records that we're a well rounded team with high combat potential. Since the defenders are allowed six hours of preparation, a normal group can't just blitz the post. Knowing the results of the Tea Cup Conflict, the enemy may begin to move the Blue Leader (who was the stand in for the usurper) or the hostages from the Command Post as soon as the game begins, accepting the slight increase in communications time for messengers and using communications seals to compensate.

“I can shut all of that down. Sachiko will provide air support with a Custom quality Pelican, and take out any messenger birds too. I'm good enough with seals to shut down the enemy's communications via seals in the opening moments as well.” At this, the jonin raised his hand to stop me.

“How good are you with seals? And what can you do for us with them? There's a note in your service record that says you're a full Uzumaki Expert, but no notes on any missions to do sealing work.”

“Technically, any sealing work I did would be as a member of Uzushiogakure, not Konohagakure. Konoha would have to pay a full Uzumaki Expert Sealer's fee, which is fairly intense. I'm allowed to use whatever personal seals I want though.” He nodded.

“I understand. So, you'd first knock out communications, and prevent reinforcements or retreat via your Pelican. Then what?”

“That's right. Then, Yasu and I would assault. Yasu would scout, and we'd avoid, disarm or destroy traps between us. When we approached the Blue fortified Command Post, I'd use my Death Experience Presence at maximum power to incapacitate the base. Then, while Yasu retrieved the hostages, I'd kill the Blue Leader and instruct the Blue Commander and guards to turn to our side or be wiped out. We would send you word, and move to the main battle region to support the newly joined Red and Blue forces.”

“How strong is your Death Experience technique?” he interrupted as I paused, finished with my explanation of what my unit would first accomplish

“Strong enough to let me beat Hatake Sakumo,” I answered with a smile. “Would you like a demonstration?”

“I know this is going to be troublesome, but I probably should.”

“Very well. Brace yourself.” That said, I began to ramp up the power. Shikata was looking visibly uncomfortable. “Right now, I'm not focusing the technique to any particular region, just letting it free.” I continued to increase the power by trickling more power to the Presence. Shikata was sweating and shaking a bit. “And, I've just hit about one percent of my power. Should I stop?” Shikata gave a jerk of his head that I interpreted as a nod. I stopped the technique, and he slumped backwards.

“Gods above. No wonder Hatake called you the Wicked Storm. That was brutal. Alright, you've sold me on your plan. It's good too, I'd originally planned on at least two jonin candidate cells and a half dozen chunin candidate cells for that operation, and would have launched it on the second or third day. A quick blitz, led by that technique, will result in far more turning to our side and a better victory. You're capable of the more usual uses of Presence; are they of similar strength?”

“They're not as overwhelming, but because of certain issues I have with genjutsu, I focused more on training my Presence to use as a substitute.”

“Interesting,” he replied, then sat up with a much stiffer posture and more commanding voice. “Jonin Candidate Uzumaki Daichi. Here are your orders. You will lead your cell, and launch an assault as we've discussed on the Blue Command Post immediately upon the start of the war-games. You will first block communications, retreat or reinforcements using aerial assets and personal seals, then assault the post, rescue the hostages, and execute the Blue Leader. You will turn as many as possible, and execute the rest.

“Upon success of the first part of your mission and your report by communications seal, you will proceed at maximum practical speed to the main combat region. There, you will announce your success and use Presence techniques to turn as many of the former Blue team to our side. You will meet up with the local command squad, and launch aerial assets, striking at the White Command Post. New orders may be given as the situation develops. Are these orders understood, and do you accept your mission?” In unison, we bowed our heads and replied.

“Yes Sir!”