Huh, so, okay. Is interest being lost? Seeing less votes than usual, and I'm just curious if it's anything about the Quest, or just people not having time, or what?
Analysis paralysis in my case. If anything, I'm thinking about this quest entirely TOO MUCH.
For one thing, if some rookie genin has noticed this then it'd be really bizarre for the higher ups to not have noticed it as well. In which case running our own investigation is going to make it look like we're spying on people. Right as people are looking for a spy. Not good.
But the big thing I that I kept coming back to was this:
Dead Ninja: 13 (4 Tide Jonin, 1 Tide Special Jonin, 3 Tide Chunin, 2 Tide Genin, 1 Tide 'Genin', 1 Reef Chunin, 1 Reef Genin)
If Tide does have a spy in reef then they haven't been able to make it pay at all. This war has been massively one sided. Emiko's assassination of Tide's leadership aside Tide has still lost many more people. In Shizue's own encounter they sent 3 academy students against 3 green but still actually graduated Genin. The other incident I recall went like this
Three genin on three genin, but this time all three Reef genin drove off the Tide genin without casualties from either side.
Again, Tide sends their Genin out and again they experience defeat against Reef Genin. Tide has a mole, are using the information in a way that gives away that they have a mole, but also in a way that doesn't produce any casualties against the enemy. There's very few good reasons for them to do this.
If they were going to use the information and give away that they have a mole then surely they would want to make it count right? Why not send some their remaining chuunin against the genin teams? Or at least send their more experienced genin? Sure, maybe they can't spare those troops but if that's the case then it'd be better to send no one at all then sending academy students in to unfavorable fights.
There are three possibilities I can see. Possibility one is that this is the result of a double agent. The person that Tide is getting information from is really working for Reef. TIde thinks they're sending their troops against opponents of at least equal proficiency but the scales are ever so slightly tipped in Reef's favor so it isn't obvious that the intel is bad. The current lopsidedness of this war makes more sense if Reef has someone inside of Tide, not the other way around. Since Emiko is a subtlety and planning type her decapitation of Tide makes more sense if she had insider information.
Possibility two is that Tide is just deliberately giving away that they have a mole. Reef's emphasis on brute strength over cleverness means that they're probably smart enough to realize they have a traitor but not smart enough to figure out who it is. Since it almost certainly has to be someone of Special Jounin or higher rank and Reef has precious few of those trying to cause a purge or infighting is probably their best play.
Possibility three is that this is neither the result of Tide having a spy in Reef or Reef having a spy in Tide. Instead Island has a spy in Reef and a spy in Tide. What makes me think that is this line
"What if they're not trying to make one side win, but instead," Rika said, "Trying to keep the war going."
The party that stands to profit most from a prolonging a war between Reef and Tide is Island. Sending genin against genin to make the casualties less one sided (it may only be dice rolls that makes these casualties so lopsided). Also has all of the benefits of scenario two.
And that doesn't even get in to how Emiko fits into all this.
