Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest (STORY ONLY)

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Chapter 666, Part 2: The Inquisitor​

Hazō rested under the wide beech tree, whose twisting, sweeping boughs reminded him of a calm fall day. Dog's seasons weren't as extreme as anywhere on the Human Path – just a slightly colder period and a slightly warmer one – yet he still found his thoughts coming to the autumn leaves. They changed from vibrant green to the colors of flame, then fell in sweeping motions, tracing a zig-zag path to the ground to meet their fate beneath the heel of a passerby. The branches overhead seemed to sweep out and down in the same way that an autumn leaf fell.

Hazō was alone, then suddenly Cannai was there.

"Summoner," the Alpha said in greeting, as Hazō realized this dog was a little less Cannai and a little more the Alpha. "Forgive me for skipping the pleasantries this time, but Dog needs me elsewhere. I am told you intended to deliver a strategic report on the Leopards' capabilities."

"That's right, sir," Hazō said, standing to face the Dog Alpha. It felt right.

"Please begin."

"You know the Dog Clan's strengths," Hazō said. "We have greater numbers, better coordination, and can outrun leopards over distance and track them when they flee. Based on what we heard from the leopard we interrogated, they're moving in groups of five or six combat-capable adults, sometimes more. Even with our advantages, groups of eight dogs can't reliably overpower such large Leopard raiding groups without casualties. I propose we instead send groups of twenty or thirty dogs at a time and harry the leopards – engage in favorable circumstances, and stay just out of reach otherwise. Chase them until they get tired or until they have to go back to where they keep their cubs, so they don't run."

"All true, summoner," Cannai said. "And I would use such tactics if a war between Dog and Leopard indeed came to pass, rather than send underprepared groups to the maws of our enemies. However, Hyōhakken will not see twenty or thirty dogs as a targeted, retaliatory raid. If those dogs are all seasoned, blooded warriors? That is a warparty."

"I see," Hazō said. "And you did not want to escalate yet."

Cannai gave a low woof of affirmation. "Cancurunchu and Canzappu are both excellent warriors – strongest in their respective packs – and the remainder of your group were all mature fighters who had fought leopards previously. This should have sufficed against the groups of two or three leopards I was anticipating, and it would apparently have sufficed even against the five or six you found had you not encountered one of Leopard's stronger warriors – a cut above even Cancurunchu in strength and notoriety.

"You have no fault, summoner. Cansaku insists at every occasion that you form a contract with him so that he can get more of those Force Blade seals, and his every account emphasizes the importance of your support. But, as you say, I do understand Dog's strengths, and I do know what we will need to do if war with Leopard is inevitable."

"And is it?" Hazō asked.

Cannai looked east, and Hazō followed his gaze. He saw only the endless plains and scattered forests of central Dog, but with the Alpha by his side, he somehow felt the cool chill of the mountains where the pangolins and hyenas were killing each other. Where Kei might be fighting.

"No," Cannai said at last. "I would not be standing here talking, if it were. But my hopes for peace grow narrower by the day, as Hyōhakken refuses my offer of peace talks and accelerates his raids on our border and in Hyena. I suspect his intent is to accept any losses to keep Dog's forces spread out, so that Hyena falls quickly and Pangolin is able to reinforce Leopard against us.

"He is wrong. Even without Conjura's support, Hyena will not fall quickly enough to save him if I turn my gaze towards crushing Leopard beneath my paw, not unless the Pangolins have found some warmaking invention comparable to your skytowers. Yet, I cannot force Hyōhakken to see sense.

"I hope, for his sake, that he does."

o-o-o​

"...and after Sasha's graduation party, Shinji also shared with us that he'd been promoted to chūnin. We applauded appropriately, of course, but we all knew he basically didn't care about it at all, right? Turns out he had a talk with Naruto, who realized that he was dramatically underpromoted, so he signed a quick order and bam! Chūnin. Not that it matters now that he's been reclassified as a full-time sealsmith, but I guess it's some prestige for the clan, right?"

Hazō nodded, accepting the latest part of Noburi's report. Something was missing. The news from the clan had all been mundane, but Noburi was subtly bouncing back and forth on his heels in excitement.

"Sounds good," Hazō said. "Was there anything else?"

"'Was there anything else?' he asks, so casually, not understanding the power he holds in the palm of his hand," Noburi muttered. "Yes, there's something else, Hazō! Remember that seal you gave me the other day, the one you said the Fourth Hokage made?"

"Yes, the one which visualizes chakra around it in that weird way, right? The fifth, seventh, and eighth seal in the chain do something like that. The Fourth had a note that the seals might be medically relevant." Hazō asked.

"Medically relevant!?" Noburi said. "It's a Sage-damned medical miracle seal, you know! I figured out it basically lets me look into a patient's chakra system and see exactly what's going on inside them. There's a bunch of medical ninjutsu that gets super complicated by interactions between your chakra and the patient's chakra, and someone that knows how to read these seals can basically make all those problematic interactions go away."

"That sounds amazing," Hazō said.

"Amazing? It's fucking fantastic! I can see chakra! It's like having a Hyūga medic in a seal! Or half a Hyūga medic. Or a quarter. Man, those guys are busted!"

"Shut it!" Fukasaku's voice called from the Toad Sage's low, squat swamp house where Hazō and Noburi met on the daily to exchange news and chakra.

"Sorry sir!" Noburi said, but apparently his outburst had attracted the elderly toad's attention, and Pa came out onto the porch, waving his thick, gray stick at the both of them.

"You need to keep your damn voice down if you're gonna be hanging out here outside when we're training you boy. Ma's making tea, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna be jumping every other second because some fool's outside my house yelling at the sky for not being purple.

"And you!" he said, turning on Hazō. "Don't you think you're overstaying your welcome? Ma invited you to dinner, not to come crawling back here every damn day to have your shadow clones crowding around everywhere. And you've left a pack of stinky dogs in our back garden, running around and barking and making a nuisance. We're done teaching you, shouldn't you go out and do some great things before you come back begging for more?"

"Get back in here, you dilapidated old dingus," Shima's voice called from the house. "Your tea's getting cold and you're getting grumpier than you usually are."

Pa shot them both a death glare, then hopped back into the house.

"...anyways," Noburi said, "you're lucky I wrapped up with Tsunade before I actually had a chance to try this out, since if she saw me using it and figured out what it was, she'd demand you be chained up in a seal sweatshop making more of these for the hospital non-stop, clan secrets be damned. Speaking of which, is this a secret?"

Hazō remembered his conversation with Naruto, where the Hokage had explained that he wouldn't necessarily back Asuma's decision to assign Minato's seals as Gōketsu clan secrets.

Hazō wobbled a hand. "Maybe. Why?"

"I just want to know how much I can use them at the hospital before I need to worry about people getting the idea to snatch a spent seal or copy it somehow. I took a day checking out some easy patients that they let me work on solo, so no one but the Hyūga saw it yet. I'm not gonna be back in the hospital for a while, but I'm gonna need you to make me like thirty more of these," Noburi said, handing a spent seal to Hazō.

Hazō looked the seal over. "That's the eighth one in the chain. Why this one?" Hazō asked.

"It was better than the others," Noburi shrugged. "I think it was giving me the most accurate reading of what was going on inside the patient. If you think one of the others is better, then give me a few of those too so I can compare and decide."

"Extra scribing work? With my schedule? I'd sooner drink Shima's spicy tea," Hazō said. "I'll get you a dozen."

"That'll do, I suppose," Noburi said, picking his barrel up off the ground. "Very well, Hazō, back to your sealing mines. The protagonist has to do his training."

o-o-o​

Canope saw Hazō pivot and dodged left. The Iron Nerve switched Hazō into a new movement track, extending his arm awkwardly to catch Canope's leap with the edge of his Force Blades. Red lines split the dog's side.

"Hold on, break," Canope said.

Hazō backed away and unhooked his gauntlets with the mock Force Blades – lightweight wood roughly whittled to the right length, then slathered in thick red lipstick (from Mari's makeup cabinet and apparently 'hopelessly out of fashion') so that the slightest touch would leave a mark.

"What's the matter?" Hazō asked.

"I think this whole effort is misguided," Canope said, as she turned around to inspect the ostensibly-lethal marks along her side. "Yes, we managed to manufacture this little situation with your bloodline where you're guaranteed to land a hit. That's not gonna work on anyone else, who has a different size and strength and decision making process and all. And unlike you humans, who all have a pretty similar combat style that lets you predict what other people are gonna do before they do it, random leopard number three hundred and forty two isn't gonna know what you're telegraphing with your movements. They're just gonna back away or jump on you and eat your face before you reach them."

"You're saying that Roki won't work on the leopards?" Hazō asked.

Canope stood up again. "I don't think so. Your human combat sounds like an elegant dance of attacks and counterattacks. I don't think you'll find that on the Seventh Path unless you for some reason fight someone a dozen times – and even then, you're going to have such asymmetric capabilities from your opponent that you might not get the reliable block patterns for you to feint your way past."

"Okay," Hazō said. "Let's test it out in a more organic scenario then. I'll jog in from that way, and you jump on me when I reach about here, and I'll see if I notice any place where I could build a Roki trap."

"Sure thing," Canope said as she settled into the grass. "Why would I say no to a roll around with the summoner? On your mark!"

o-o-o​

The thick clouds and new moon had made the night pitch-black, and so Kagome-sensei had cautiously approved a campfire, so long Purifiers caught all the smoke and Darkness Domes caught all the light as it left the Earth Wall fire pit from above. Game from the island – burrowing rabbit-mosquito creatures that Hazō did not want to think about – roasted above the fireplace and filled the vaguely square enclosure with inexplicably delicious scents.

While Kagome-sensei turned and seasoned the unthinkable meats, Hazō scribed Light Relay seals. He'd originally wanted instantaneous long-range communication. Set up underground tunnels in Leaf with a chain of the seals, then a light on one side would near-instantly appear on the other side. Unlike summoner communication, which needed a scroll and even then only worked with prearranged check-ins, anyone could use this. Sadly, he'd never gotten around to testing it, so in the single hour that he'd budgeted for relaxation today, Hazō had decided to set up a small prototype of his communication tunnel.

He was mid-infusion when a puff of smoke signaled Kei's return from the Seventh Path, and his chakra shifted slightly more chthonic than he'd intended.

Kei opened her mouth to say something, but stopped as Hazō dropped the seal and hopped back to the wall. Everyone recognized a sealmaster's horror and backed away, Kagome-sensei going for his explosives.

But nothing happened.

Before Kagome-sensei could blow up their dinner, Hazō quickly adjusted his stance to a relaxed one. "Sorry, false alarm, everyone. I thought Kei's arrival messed up my infusion, but it's fine."

Kagome-sensei's eyes narrowed and Hazō sighed.

Fifty-five questions later, Hazō had convinced Kagome that a secret sealing failure hadn't eaten Hazō's brain, and the underside of the spitroasted… things had been considerably blackened by the campfire's heat.

"Really, it's just a normal Light Relay," Hazō said, walking over and picking up the seal from beside the campfire. He turned the receiver towards the cheery flame and the emitter face of the seal lit up a rich orange. "Just like normal."

"What concerned you to such a great extent?" Kei asked as she settled down on her halved log, eyeing the suspicious meats with the caution they deserved as Kagome hurried to get them off the flames. "My admittedly mediocre understanding was that sealing failures generally made themselves evident to the sealmaster rapidly and violently, rather than granting you seconds to gape at the failing seal in horror."

"Well, I thought I messed up my chakra in the infusion in a particular way, maybe moving the receiver's tuning beyond red," Hazō said. "I did something like that when I was teaching Harumitsu, and there was a sealing failure then too. I thought I'd accidentally tuned the receiver to an impossible color and caused another sealing failure, but it's stable and there's no weird effects."

"I see," Kei said, extending a hand to examine the infused seal. Hazō handed it over. She held it closer to the fire to light up the seal, then pulled it away to darken it. Kagome tried to offer her food, but she shook her head. "I saw too many corpses today for my appetite to be counted amongst the survivors. Mere companionship will suffice to prepare me to return to Pangolin."

"That bad? Do you want to talk about it?" Hazō asked.

"There was another Hyena raid," Kei said. "The most deadly yet. Two pangolin civilians were slain before we noticed their presence, and two more perished before our approach prompted the Hyena retreat. They still refuse to engage with my tessera while I am present, and I do not wish to learn what they intend to do with the town if they overpower the tessera in my absence, so my presence here will be brief… but I do require additional comfort, yes."

"What can we do?" Hazō asked, starting to saw the blackened bits off his dinner.

"I do not know," she said, slightly exasperated. "Were you Tenten, you would know better than I how to ameliorate my emotional turmoil, and perhaps even were you Miyuki would you be able to make a passing attempt. Instead you… well, I suppose you and Kagome provide emotional support in different ways. Tell me, how you would resolve my current predicament, apart from the obvious."

"The obvious?" Hazō asked.

Kei closed her eyes and sighed. When she reopened them, she reached for another of the Light Relay seals. "The town I am defending is of no strategic relevance, hence why the Hyenas will not invest deeply in an attack, and why Pantsā will not allocate additional resources to its defense. The obvious solution to the townspangolins being chipped away by one attack at a time is to petition Pantsā to evacuate the town to a safer location so that its people might survive. However, this would all but cede the associated land to Haikari, so Pantsā will refuse."

"You can't let the stinking Hyenas kill your people, Kei," Kagome said. "They're not gonna face you straight up because their strategy is working. Can you build a larger perimeter that they can't cross? They can't fly, right?"

"I have considered this," Kei said, voice marginally more deadened than usual. "Indeed, some hyenas have already committed suicide against traps of your creation, Kagome. However, they have grown wise to the existence of trap perimeters and have begun to pelt them at range from ninjutsu, triggering seals prematurely and creating holes in the perimeter. This type of raid is obviously less lethal to the community than the ones in which the pangolins are exposed to the hyenas' attacks directly. However, the associated cost – the loss of the deployed seals – is unacceptably high."

"Seals are cheap, Kei," Kagome said. "Paper's cheap! Ink's cheap!"

"Commercially-available goods have not been our primary production bottleneck for years, Kagome," Kei said. "For all the value associated with a bandolier with hundreds of explosive seals, I cannot actually use hundreds of seals daily without incurring an unacceptably high cost to your time.

"I have observed the raiding groups to contain eight Hyenas on average, who fire two to three ninjutsu each before our response forces their departure, where each ninjutsu destroys one seal in expectation, accounting for explosives destroying adjacent seals and frequent ninjutsu misses. These ninjutsu need not be powerful, as they are merely triggering traps rather than attacking an enemy, so this raid may happen twice or thrice a day.

"Explosive seals and storage seals aside, as your former students provide a near-limitless supply of them, I shall conservatively call the number of seals destroyed per day at around fifty. Scribing these seals would require every other day of your time, Kagome, and you are engaged in a seal-research race with Akatsuki for the fate of the Elemental Nations. Whatever my opinions on the townspangolins' right to life, the logistician in me clearly sees that this cost is absolutely unacceptable."

While Kagome-sensei processed Kei's words, Hazō spoke. "If you can't wait the hyenas out as they come, can you instead take the fight to them? Dog has been punishing Leopard for their raids with small-scale counterattacks, hopefully just enough to dissuade them from attacking without forcing Leopard to counterattack."

"I suppose that must be the solution," Kei said, resigned, as she held the two Light Relay seals together. "If Hyena is made aware that the Pangolin Summoner is a lethal force not to be trifled with, yet is spending her time guarding a nameless village far from any theater of importance, I think they would ecstatically leave me alone. I had hoped that I might-"

"Kei?" Hazō asked.

"This Light Relay is slightly different," Kei said evenly. To demonstrate, she held both seals together, pointing toward the fire. Slowly, she brought them closer. The one Hazō thought he'd misinfused activated. Seconds of slow movement later, the other activated.

Kagome jumped to his feet, preparing weapons to destroy the anomalous seal, but Hazō stood as well. "Wait, Kagome-sensei! The seal didn't fail. It's working exactly according to the specification, isn't it? It's just more sensitive than it should be."

A quick test confirmed that the other Light Relays Hazō had infused under normal conditions activated at roughly the same distance as each other, while the anomalous one activated farther from the light. Hazō spent five agonizing minutes scribing another Light Relay and infusing it just chthonic enough for its receiver to be red, only for them to find out that even a red receiver wasn't as sensitive as the misinfused one.

"I think the fire is just emitting a spread of colors – yellow, orange, red, and past-red," Hazō said, after a quick debate. "I guess I can tune a receiver to receive past-red, but the Light Relay's emitter is just like HOWS, so tuning the emitter to past-red might cause a sealing failure again. Still, we should test it. I could scribe another Light Relay and try tuning the receiver more chthonic than red and see if it shows the same behavior. We could do that now, and if it produces the same result, we-"

"No seal experiments at dinner!" Kagome said, waving his hands in Hazō's face to break him out of the fugue. "If you want to test this, you do it tomorrow, with a fresh night's sleep to think it over, after doing all the proper dances, at a proper facility, with a shadow clone, when we're all ready to reverse summon and behind six meters of granite." His teacher shoved another roast spit of something better left unknown in front of Hazō's face. "For now, eat!"

"Sorry Kei," Hazō said, once he'd gotten a couple bites in to mollify Kagome-sensei. "You were saying?"

Kei glanced to the side. "Actually, on reflection, I believe I exaggerated the extent to which the day's carnage diminished my appetite. Kagome, may I partake in the food you've prepared?"

Kagome quickly handed her food. Kei started to pick it apart, and with everyone occupied by their meals, Hazō put thoughts of conversation aside and let his mind start to swirl with ideas.

o-o-o

​

"...and we expect to see no further Leaf ninja in reallocated territories for any reason, regardless of whether those territories are currently possessed by Rain, or else we shall consider such actions to be AMITY violations.

"Finally, Sasori is pleased with the seals he has received, so that component of our agreement is complete."

"'Agreement'?," Naruto said stiffly. "I never agreed to it."

"The agreement between Akatsuki and Leaf," Itachi replied, "consisting primarily of a substantial weregild paid by Leaf for the AMITY-violating murder of a member of Akatsuki and high-ranking officer of Hidden Rain. That agreement was made between myself, representing Akatsuki, and Tsunade, representing the office of Hokage and thus Hidden Leaf, and later affirmed by members of AMITY. When the title of Hokage is passed on, all agreements and contracts made by former Hokage remain in place unless explicitly broken, so this agreement binds you as a primary party. Unless you wish to renege on this agreement?"

"Whatever," Naruto said.

"Whatever?" Itachi repeated. "Let's be clear. Are we agreed that you consider yourself bound by the aforementioned agreement?"

"Yes, fine."

"Good," Itachi said. "Then, that leaves only one component to discuss: Leaf's research on dimensionalism. Where is Gōketsu Hazō?"

"On a research mission," Naruto said.

Itachi blinked for a moment, and Naruto took a moment to glance at his tormentor. The Kinslayer was sitting there across from the Hokage's chair with his eyes closed, as if he didn't fear any retaliation Naruto could bring to bear. Which was probably true, since Itachi was certainly a shadow clone, and Leaf didn't have a genjutsu specialist that could inflict enough psychic damage before the clone would dispel and Itachi would know Leaf had made a direct attempt on his sanity.

Then Itachi opened his eyes again, and Naruto found his gaze forced away.

"You sent him on a research mission?" Itachi asked.

"He asked for one himself."

"Where is Gōketsu Hazō located?"

"In the southern isles," Naruto said. "He said he fancied a beach trip on one of the little islands off the coast of Tea. His mission papers have his exact location, but of course we won't provide these things to a foreign ninja that may well wish him harm."

"This is relevant to the agreement," Itachi said. "Do you believe Gōketsu Hazō is researching dimensionalism?"

Naruto shook his head. "No. He said he wanted to do weapons research. I dunno if that's true, maybe he wanted an excuse to get out from under the paperwork and lie on the beach for a while. Whatever, he said it was clan secrets so I didn't ask too many questions."

"'Clan secrets' does not suffice," Itachi said. "Is he researching the rift?"

Naruto shook his head, making sure that his gaze never crossed into eye-contact with Itachi. "I gave him strict orders not to work on anything rift-related."

"Hm. You're in contact with him via the Seventh Path?"

"Minimally," Naruto said. "He's busy, and doesn't take many of my messages."

"I see. You will require his immediate return so that I may confirm that he has produced no new work on dimensionalism."

"You're not-!" Naruto said, turning to face Itachi. He met the man's gaze and immediately, instinctively flinched back to the side, heart racing and vision darkening as his torturer met his gaze, unspoken words crossing the gap between them.

My gaze is dangerous. Yours is powerless.

I control every aspect of your mind.

Your resistance only causes you punishment.

"-the one who gives orders to Leaf ninja," Naruto finished half-heartedly.

Itachi continued to look at him, black eyes drilling in while Naruto's mind ran rivers of red. He refused to make eye contact.

"You will send a message to Gōketsu Hazō via the Seventh Path, ordering his immediate return to Leaf, so that I may confirm that he has not produced new work on dimensionalism in violation of Akatsuki's recent agreement with Leaf."

…

"Fine," Naruto said. A 'go fuck yourself' manifested itself in his mind, but Naruto knew he would never be able to verbalize it. If only shoving a Rasengan through Itachi's face would have solved a damn thing…

"Good," Itachi said. "I will confirm that you have done so. I suspect Hidan will also be curious about those mission papers. Now, I wanted to ask you about Orochimaru..."

o-o-o​

Noburi had looked shaken, and for good reason. He wasn't just delivering an urgent message from the Hokage. Uchiha freaking Itachi had apparently visited the Gōketsu main house late at night, politely waited to be escorted through the trap array by a bewildered Kazushi before coming to see Noburi. Only then did the Kinslayer clearly and firmly tell Noburi that Hazō needed to return to Leaf 'at his earliest convenience'.

Ordinarily, a family member confronting an Akatsuki member would be at the front of Hazō's mind, but Naruto's message had included a line that had struck him. "The mission's over Hazō, so stop screwing around in the sand and get back to Leaf immediately because Akatsuki wants to talk to you."

Sure enough, in the stack of thin envelopes Naruto had handed to Hazō via the Seventh Path, one of them was marked "Screwing around in the sand".

Scenario:

• Akatsuki has figured out that you're working on something to oppose their control of the rift, and suspects Leaf involvement.
• We don't have rift technology sufficient to open the rift and pull our people out in less than two weeks.
• Akatsuki probably hasn't opened the rift yet, and so is mostly spread out or based in Rain.
• No substantial changes on the Orochimaru front.

Action:

• If you have defenses that can deter Konan + Deidara's offense indefinitely, or weapons that can kill at least two Akatsuki members reliably, return to Leaf immediately.
• Otherwise, open the envelope marked "Kurohige".
• If you have research bandwidth, start to develop rift technology in parallel with Orochimaru. I don't trust that he won't take the rift for his own, but it's still better that he selfishly sit on another immortality source than Akatsuki do who-knows-what with it. Still, I'd rather it be in your hands than his.

In the envelope marked "Kurohige", Hazō found a longer missive, again in Naruto's sloppy scrawl.

'Cause Kurohige left Mist for a long time, but eventually came back to help it out, right? I've been learning a bit of Mist culture recently and I think I nailed the reference.

If you're opening this letter, you need to go missing for the good of Leaf. I'll send Akatsuki on a wild goose chase so you have a head start on them, but you need to drop out of contact indefinitely, and not return to Leaf until you have game-changing defenses (can neutralize Konan + Deidara's offense) or offenses (can reliably kill at least one Akatsuki member at a static, well-defended location [rift or Hidden Rain]).

I wish I could have some way to contact you to tell you to return, but if I can do it, Akatsuki can do it. I have to trust your judgment on this. If you come back, Leaf will fight to defend you from Akatsuki. That could spell the end of Leaf if what you bring back isn't good enough. Come back too late, and we might have already observed Akatsuki at the rift site, waited as long as we thought we could afford to, attacked, and lost. It's a trade-off.

Ideally, you bring back runes and tools ready-to-go and we immediately attack Akatsuki at O'uzu, but who can tell what the future will bring?

Everyone's going to be looking for you. Akatsuki's spy network is strongest in the minors, in Sand, and in the near parts of the Eastern Continent, but they could have someone anywhere. Staying out of contact on the Human Path should be easy. I'll keep Leaf off your ass as much as I can manage (which is not much – I need to act like I really want your head). Roughly speaking, I'm going to have Leaf focus on the southern isles for around two months, then Iron and Snow for two months more, then the Eastern Continent. I can't predict what'll be happening six months out.

I leave it to your judgment how to deal with the Seventh Path. I recommend: don't go anywhere except limited sites in Dog and Arachnid, interacting only with dogs and arachnids strictly under oath not to carry any messages to you from the outside, and have the Dog and Arachnid bosses spread far and wide that this is the case (but obviously not the locations of the sites), including sending messages to Crow and Shark so they can't possibly miss it. Akatsuki will try to get to you via the Seventh Path, and you can use Seventh Path honor as a shield, kind of.

For anyone you take with you – if you tell them that 'going missing' is a sham and that I agreed to it, make sure they also know that they must not return to Leaf with this knowledge. If Akatsuki learns that I suggested you go missing to beat them to the rift, things are going to be real bad for us. I recommend trying to convince them without mentioning my approval and only saying it if they join, but I leave it to your judgment.

If you need them: here are three assets from Jiraiya's spy network that Asuma judged as not very useful and never reactivated. I'll go through the books and make sure any mention of them is expunged.

• Suzuki Yūka is a carpenter's wife in the village under the big mossy cliff twenty-five miles north of Otafuku Gai. She is a former chūnin from an unknown (non-Leaf) village. She wants to live a normal life, and Jiraiya blackmailed her with the threat of sending a Hyūga sweep through her village, which would discover her as a ninja, or worse, identify her children as chakra-capable and thus future Leaf ninja. Jiraiya mainly used her for top-secret message runs and for generally keeping an ear on the pulse of trade through Rice and Hot Springs (though the small size of the village limited that utility).
• Syōma is an information broker and priest of some weird religious order on the Eastern Continent. Apparently he's a straightforward guy – put ryō in, get answers out. Jiraiya said he once tried to force answers out of him, but he resisted Jiraiya's killing intent better than most jōnin. Jiraiya half-shit himself thinking he'd overextended himself pissing off a powerful ninja at arm's length, but the guy apparently didn't even notice that Jiraiya had done anything! His intel on the Elemental Nations is mediocre, but Jiraiya says he sometimes knows stuff that no civilian has any right to. Go to Red Moon Inn in Marsh's capital and ask for an 'iron nail stew'.
• Yamada Saki is the wife of the biggest business magnate in Kanmuri, the Land of Earth's biggest city outside of Hidden Rock itself. She's an incurable gossip with an incredible memory – apparently she remembers the names and descriptions of ninja that her friends' friends hired decades ago. Jiraiya seduced her, so I don't know exactly how you're going to reactivate the asset, but maybe some promises around Jiraiya's return might get you a little bit of progress? If your questions are innocuous, she might just answer them anyway out of habit.

I hope that's enough.
​

---

Hazō has set a HOWR (light-emitting rune) next to a fresh Five Seal Barrier in an Earthshaped room 10 meters underground so as to not give away his location to the entire Elemental Nations, with a reference 5SB in a similar room 100 meters away. Both 5SBs were infused by Kagome back to back, so hopefully the astrological conditions of their infusions were identical. Hopefully, the HOWR-adjacent 5SB runs out of energy faster.

A later test of past-red receiving Light Relays reveal that they can be stably infused and reliably activate when exposed to flames of various sizes and sorts.

Spoiler: Rune research

Day 1
Cleaning up camp, moving to Gaikotsu Bay.

Day 2
Prep Icarus Rune.
Prep Space-Stretch Rune.
Prep Storage Rune. Difficulty Result: Hazō thinks he could maybe do this rune. Accordingly, Hazō aborts research on this rune.
Prep Capacitor Rune.
Prep Pocket Space Rune. Difficulty Result: Hazō thinks he could maybe do this rune. Hazō also thinks the Space Stretch Rune and similar things would build useful veterancy here.

Day 3
Prep Icarus Rune.
Prep Space-Stretch Rune.
Prep Capacitor Rune.
Prep Remote-Explosion Rune. Difficulty Result: Hazō thinks this rune is well within his capabilities.
Prep Storm Rune. Hazō thinks a full thunderstorm would be needlessly challenging as it is composed of many different effects (heavy clouds, rain, wind, etc.). Instead, he simply preps a rune that calls down loads and loads of lightning in the rune's area of effect. Difficulty Result: Hazō thinks this rune is well within his capabilities.

Day 4
Prep Icarus Rune.
Prep Space-Stretch Rune.
Prep Capacitor Rune.
Prep Kagome-Sensei-Satisfying Explosive Rune. Difficulty Result: Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities
Prep Jiraiya's Awesome Dawnbuster Legacy Rune. Difficulty Result: Hazō thinks this rune is well within his capabilities.

Day 5
Infuse Icarus Rune.

Hazō (Primordial Sealing): 20 + 25 (crossover bonus from SSA-boosted Sealing) + 6 (prep) + 0 = 51
Hazō (Earthshaping): 50 - 6 (timeladder down) + 6 (prep) - 9 = 41
[NB: Getting sketchy… Still high ES relative to PrimSeal, so no reroll, but it's getting close.]

Hazō makes progress on the Icarus Rune.


Infuse Space-Stretch Rune.

Hazō (Primordial Sealing): 20 + 25 (crossover bonus from SSA-boosted Sealing) + 6 (prep) + 6 = 57
Hazō (Earthshaping): 50 - 6 (timeladder down) + 6 (prep) + 0 = 50

Hazō handily completes the Space Stretch Rune! Expands space in a moderately-sized area by a minor amount. Exact details TBD.


Infuse Capacitor Rune.

Hazō (Primordial Sealing): 20 + 17 (crossover bonus from Sealing) + 6 (prep) + 0 = 43
Hazō (Earthshaping): 50 - 6 (timeladder down) + 6 (prep) - 3 = 47

Hazō makes progress on the Capacitor Rune.


Prep Explosiver Rune. Difficulty Result: Hazō thinks he could maybe do this rune.

Prep Landmine Rune. Hazō thinks that instantaneous rune activation is nearly impossible given the amount of power runes need to channe, so he prepares a rune which is primed over the usual ~30s and then remains dormant until a triggering condition happens, at which point it takes about 3 seconds (read: one combat round) to activate. Difficulty Result: Hazō thinks this rune is well within his capabilities.

Hazō expects some trigger conditions will be more difficult than others – "a human with ninja levels of chakra is running past" would probably be relatively difficult but "a thing hit the rune with X force" would probably be relatively easy. He thinks the "seal-activation levels of chakra applied to the surface of the rune" trigger condition that he tried to make here is on the easy side, although it should be noted that this delayed-activation functionality is never going to be trivial to add in.

Day 6
SSA recovery.

Day 7
SSA recovery.

Day 8
Prep Icarus Rune.
Prep Capacitor Rune.
Prep Canary Rune. Difficulty Result: Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities.
Prep Portable-Explosive Rune. Difficulty Result: Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities.

Day 9
Prep Icarus Rune.
Prep Capacitor Rune.

Day 10
Prep Icarus Rune.
Prep Capacitor Rune.

Day 11
Infuse Icarus Rune.

Hazō (Primordial Sealing): 20 + 25 (crossover bonus from SSA-boosted Sealing) + 6 (prep) - 3 = 48
Hazō (Earthshaping): 50 - 6 (timeladder down) + 6 (prep) - 3 = 47

Hazō is making steady progress on the Icarus Rune. He thinks he is around a third of the way finished with the rune.


Infuse Capacitor Rune.

Hazō (Primordial Sealing): 20 + 25 (crossover bonus from SSA-boosted Sealing) + 6 (prep) + 0 = 51
Hazō (Earthshaping): 50 - 6 (timeladder down) + 6 (prep) - 3 = 47

Hazō thinks he is barely inches away from completing the Capacitor Rune.

Day 12
SSA recovery.

Day 13
SSA recovery.

This update covered 13 days for Hazō and 11 days objectively. It is currently the morning of September 5th in-character.

XP Award: 48 + 10 (brevity) XP
GM-fun Award: 2 XP

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Jul 6, 2024 at 1:00 PM .

 

[eaglejarl]

Chapter 667: Disciple of the Beyond​

HazōNoDomes4U (yes, he had been very clear about the childish spelling) was working on a rune to prevent the formation of Air Domes within a wide area. This, of course, would shut down skywalkers in the affected area, thereby causing anyone using them to experience, as Gōketsu Michiki might have stated it, 'a rapid unplanned terrain interaction causing dispreferred levels of cranial widening.' Translated from engineerese: plummeting into the unforgiving bosom of Mother Earth and spreading the contents of one's skull over a twenty-foot radius. Given that at least some members of Akatsuki used skywalkers for aerial mobility, this was a potential assassination option.

HazōEvenBiggerPackRat was working on the Storage Rune, an upscaled version of the normal storage seal that would have a vastly larger weight- and volume limit. Hopefully, although perhaps not with this version, it would be possible to get around the other limitation of storage seals: the inability to store anything with chakra. With luck maybe they could put a living person into a time-locked storage space, thereby eliminating them as a threat. Again, a useful tool against arrogant demigods who were too strong for Hazō to attack head-on.

HazōJuiceUpGuy was working on the Capacitor Rune, something that Hazō figured was going to need very careful presentation to Noburi. It would gather a huge amount of ambient chakra...and do nothing. Hazō could almost hear his brother's reactions, and the most likely was mockery over the uselessness of the rune, followed by sharp-edged demands about whether or not Hazō was trying to make Noburi obsolete as a chakra source. The answer to that was, well, yes. Eventually, he wanted a rune that would pull in ambient chakra, prepare it for human use, and then allow any ninja to pull the chakra out and into their coils. No more of that pesky drinking necessary. Hazō was definitely going to need to talk to Mari about how to present this to Noburi. Regardless, having a way to charge up allied ninja in preparation for ambushing Akatsuki was obviously useful.

Hazō Prime had reserved the best rune for himself. He was working on the Space Stretch Rune, a rune that would do to space what his Time Runes had done for time: extend it for those within the effect. Someone inside the affected area might measure it as being fifteen yards across while someone outside the area might measure it as being ten yards across. He didn't have an explicit anti-Akatsuki use in mind but he was sure he could figure one out. Or Out, as the case might be.

He chuckled under his breath, drawing a quick glance from Kagome-sensei who was scribing seals a short distance away. Hazō shook his head to say that it was nothing; his teacher gave him an annoyed glare that carried with it an entire sermon on the dangers of letting one's thoughts wander while doing chakra work on seals (or, in this case, runes), but he went back to his own task with merely a sniff.

The silent lesson was well taken; Hazō pushed his distractions aside and focused on the rune he was working.

He wasn't actually trying to infuse the thing, merely working chakra manipulations to check the effects of calculations he had made yesterday. He could see how the chakra structure of the rune would work...or, at least, sometimes he could see it. The chakra construct that embodied a rune was a complex thing, the simplest explosive rune existing in no less than seventeen dimensions. Visualizing something like that in a normal human brain wasn't feasible. You could model it mathematically, you could encode multiple dimensions into a condensed and approximated form the same way "250 miles that way" specified the path to Leaf in a more condensed form than the full directions which would take into account things like terrain obstructions. No, a normal brain could not capture the true form of a rune's chakra construct in one go.

Hazō's brain, of course, was not normal.

Years before, he had gazed upon the Pangolin Summoning Scroll and allowed his Iron Nerve bloodline to store a mental copy of the scroll's seal the way it stored a copy of every other seal he came across. Summoning scrolls, however, were no mere seals. They were something more, something no living person understood or could create. The attempt had cracked his mind, very slightly and in a very useful way. That crack had been torn gapingly wide when he gazed upon the mountain-sized Great Seal in Arachnid, the one that held b4ck the Drag0ns.

He reached through that crack, pressing his awareness into the hyperreality that lay beyond the Paint that was the quote real unquote world. It was a place of madness, of sonic ankles and searing velvet that scoured at the rude intrusion of human awareness with bristles of daydream and spoiled milk.

He pressed aside the silent din with the skill of long practice and took hold, spinning out a tendril of madness and weaving it into a preliminary form, a notiona1 basket that would provide the general structure of his rune's construct. The basket twisted as he built it, spinning through twelve dimensions of apple and sour and dirty hair and sweat-soaked sheets. He enc0mpassed all of it, widening his gaze to perceive all of the basket at the same time, and began to feed ch.kra through it.

The nonworld around him continued to leer and chant and susurrate with charcoal strength in an unguided(?) attempt to break him down and pull h1m ap@rt..

Wait.

Long discipllln3 held the rune's construct stabl3 as Hazō considered what he was perceiving around himhimhimmmself.

The distractions weren't entirely unguided.

Across the Paint, he blinked in shock.

There was S̶͈̯̘̹̰̈̂ō̵̘̖̰ṃ̶̻͈͍̻̌e̶̦̤̾͝ẗ̵̹̅̃́͘͜h̴̛̯̠̪̽̅̋̍i̴̧͌̈́̈̓n̴͊͜g̸̰̹̝̯̜ ͂there. Not an ent12ty, not a being like hE was, but an awareness nonetheless. The movement of n0nࠓêäl1ty around him was clearly not that of random chance. No, it wasn't thaaat there saw S̶͈̯̘̹̰̈̂ō̵̘̖̰ṃ̶̻͈͍̻̌e̶̦̤̾͝ẗ̵̹̅̃́͘͜h̴̛̯̠̪̽̅̋̍i̴̧͌̈́̈̓n̴͊͜g̸̰̹̝̯̜ ereht was S̶͈̯̘̹̰̈̂ō̵̘̖̰ṃ̶̻͈͍̻̌e̶̦̤̾͝ẗ̵̹̅̃́͘͜h̴̛̯̠̪̽̅̋̍i̴̧͌̈́̈̓n̴͊͜g̸̰̹̝̯̜ there, there was S̶͈̯̘̹̰̈̂ō̵̘̖̰ṃ̶̻͈͍̻̌e̶̦̤̾͝ẗ̵̹̅̃́͘͜h̴̛̯̠̪̽̅̋̍i̴̧͌̈́̈̓n̴͊͜g̸̰̹̝̯̜. As in, all of 'there' was the S̶͈̯̘̹̰̈̂ō̵̘̖̰ṃ̶̻͈͍̻̌e̶̦̤̾͝ẗ̵̹̅̃́͘͜h̴̛̯̠̪̽̅̋̍i̴̧͌̈́̈̓n̴͊͜g̸̰̹̝̯̜ and the S̶͈̯̘̹̰̈̂ō̵̘̖̰ṃ̶̻͈͍̻̌e̶̦̤̾͝ẗ̵̹̅̃́͘͜h̴̛̯̠̪̽̅̋̍i̴̧͌̈́̈̓n̴͊͜g̸̰̹̝̯̜ was all there was.

Hazō's m1nd shredded as something came from the S̶͈̯̘̹̰̈̂ō̵̘̖̰ṃ̶̻͈͍̻̌e̶̦̤̾͝ẗ̵̹̅̃́͘͜h̴̛̯̠̪̽̅̋̍i̴̧͌̈́̈̓n̴͊͜g̸̰̹̝̯̜. It wasn't sound, or smell, or touch. S̶͈̯̘̹̰̈̂ō̵̘̖̰ṃ̶̻͈͍̻̌e̶̦̤̾͝ẗ̵̹̅̃́͘͜h̴̛̯̠̪̽̅̋̍i̴̧͌̈́̈̓n̴͊͜g̸̰̹̝̯̜ w4s aLl of r3al!ty; i7 couLd nO moer touch Hazō than cOuLd rElaality. He felt h1mmms3l c min a p a r t @7 7|-|3 7|-|3 7|-|3 7|-|3 7|-|3 s{R4 s{R4P s{R4Ping T0V{|-| of—

Unreality blinked around him and softened as nothing and everything changed. The petrichor color of the madness that swaddled him now seemed familiar and logical. Something̸̰̹̝̯̜ stood between him and the hyperreality, shielding his fragile humanity from the grinding tastes of F4# and the plunging heights of starlight that carried him along the river of ideation and reification, his runic construct bobbing lazily beside him.

His perceptions had sharpened, and weakened. His awareness ('sight' was entirely the wrong word) stretched farther and penetrated what had previously been stygian pits of irony and dazzling rafts of blind indifference. Shapes moved around him, most of them vastly larger than himself, so large that they could grind buildings or planets to dust with a casual bump, but some so small they seemed able to slip between the fibers of his combat vest without noticing that the vest existed. They weren't anything that a mind from his side of the Paint could have perceived; they existed in too many directions and their composition defied language. He couldn't tell if they were hyperreality's inanimate icebergs or genius denizens or blind and hungry animals—indeed, there were undoubtedly all of those things and more besides. Only now, with the intercession of the S̶͈̯̘̹̰̈̂ō̵̘̖̰ṃ̶̻͈͍̻̌e̶̦̤̾͝ẗ̵̹̅̃́͘͜h̴̛̯̠̪̽̅̋̍i̴̧͌̈́̈̓n̴͊͜g̸̰̹̝̯̜ did he realize that those things had always been here.

Sage's name, how arrogant could one be? He had thought he understood this 'place', that he could come and go as he pleased, using the madness of it to enhance his abilities with seals, his power to test them against the cracks in the Paint in order to find how they would best fit. He had never thought that there were Things here, eating away at his brain for every instant he worked. Every time he had used this power he had suffered a blinding headache for days, one that got worse every time he even thought about anything related to sealing. He had believed it was simply part of what it meant for a puny mortal to be exposed to the Out, but now he knew better.

They had been eating him.

Every time he had come here to practice the best ways of cracking open his reality and rendering it more easily accessible by these...Things, they had been there. Their passage had buffeted and battered him constantly as they crowded close, swimming through his brain and defecating ideas and understanding while pressing obscene and defiled bodies against the crack in his mind that almost but not quite gave them entrance to his home.

Now, he was hidden from them, and for that he was more grateful than anything.

Thank you, he thought as loudly as he could. Hyperreality made no reply.

He turned his attention away from the Things and focused it back on the runic construct. It made more sense now, the willow snow dimension connecting clearly and cleanly with the fruit whirlwind kick. It made sense, in the same way that a kata made sense after you had practiced it a thousand times. In fact, runes seemed far more logical than seals. He was mapping dozens of dimensions down into something that could fit across the Paint; why make the extra effort to fit it into two dimensions when he could use the third as well? Honestly, it made so much more sense that he could barely remember how he had done the two-dimensional squishing in the first place.

Far away, on the other side of the Paint, his body snorted in amusement. Here, in this nonplace, his mind focused on the rune that would twist space like taffy.

It was well.

---

Author's Note: Good news! Hazō has exchanged his 'Summoning Scroll Acoylyte' stunt for the 'Disciple of the Beyond' stunt! This is an exchange, so there is no XP cost. The change increases Hazō's Primordial Sealing skill (the one used for runes) at the cost of reducing his Sealing skill (the one used for paper-based seals).

Better news! After much discussion, the QMs have decided that the crossover bonus between disciplines (e.g. Sealing and Primoridal Sealing) is innate, not a buff. As such, it does not require a 100 XP combination stunt in order to work alongside Disciple of the Beyond. You may rejoice now.

XP and Brevity award: 0 The vote was for an interlude, not a plan.

"GM had fun" XP: 5

It is now about 8pm and your check-in with Noburi is in an hour. This update covered 1 day.

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Wednesday, Jul 10, 2024 at 7:00 AM .

 

[Velorien]

Chapter 668: Soon We'll Go Missing Again​

"It's time," Hazō announced grimly as the four members of Operation Twilight (Snowflake had decided that if Kei got to name the site of operations, then someone needed to name the mission as well) gathered on the central skytower. Furious winds lashed the outside of the old-fashioned seal-based air dome while the torrential rain pouring down it made Hazō feel like he was sitting inside an oversized Hōzuki's Mantle. The occasional flash of lightning reminded him that the team was altogether closer to the heavens than was currently sensible.

"Naruto has sent us a message," he went on. "Come back with your shark or in your shark."

"What?!" Kagome-sensei demanded as he rose sharply to his feet, the lanky man's head brushing perilously against the dome. "So that stinking Fox has finally got to the direct threats, has it? I told you we should never have–"

"Kagome!" Kei snapped. She held his gaze for a moment, and Hazō's sealing instructor sat back down sheepishly. After a second, the cold retreated.

"I will overlook, for the moment, the uncalled-for insult to my dear friend," she said. "Hazō was merely referencing a traditional Hoshigaki saying. It means, 'It is better to perish in the course of completing a mission than to abandon it and return to the clan in dishonour'. I must say it is a deeply ironic one to use in this particular company."

Hazō looked at his companions. Kei's eyebrows were quirked in amusement. Snowflake was giving him an 'oh, really?' look. Kagome-sensei seemed ill-at-ease.

"That occurred to me about half a second after I said it," Hazō admitted. "But I'm being serious. Itachi turned up in Leaf and demanded my return. Obviously, that's not an option. I can't gamble my life and Leaf's future on beating an Akatsuki interrogation. In other words, I have to go missing, and the people who know what I've been doing and why have to go missing with me.

"This is it. Either we complete Operation Twilight and are welcomed back to Leaf as heroes or we die at Akatsuki's hands before we can. For those of us who refuse to accept a future determined by Pain, there is no third option.

"I'm sorry it's come to this. It might not have if I'd been able to complete my research in time. But we all knew before we set out that it was more likely to turn out this way than not. I have to admit I hoped Naruto would be able to buy us more time, but I've long since learned not to count on best-case scenarios."

"He cannot be blamed," Kei interjected. "This part of the plan hinged on forcing him to face his personal nemesis, the man who stripped him of his power and doubtless tortured him in unimaginable ways in the process of preparing him for a uniquely agonising death that would use him as a tool for his loved ones' doom. A man, furthermore, with extensive experience practising psychic domination of other S-rankers with the aid of a Bloodline Limit ideally suited to the task. Your worst encounters with Orochimaru would be a luxurious soak in the hot springs by comparison. That the Eighth was able to stand firm and follow the plan at all is an achievement to be respected rather than a failure to excel."

Hazō sighed. "You're right, of course. Still, we are where we are. It takes less than two weeks to get back from the southern islands where we officially are to Hidden Leaf. Assuming Akatsuki bought the cover story in the first place, that's how long we have before they stop being polite and go after us with everything they've got."

"You are correct," Kei said, looking away, at the raging storm almost close enough to touch. "This was always the expected outcome. I… had believed I was better prepared."

Snowflake squeezed her hand. "At least now I no longer need to feel excluded from the formative missing-nin experience," she said with false cheer.

Hazō couldn't think of anything to say to that. Snowflake had fought hard, in ways none of them had ever had to, to make Leaf her home. She'd had to fight to be accepted as a person, then as a legal entity, then a citizen, all in the name of a place to belong that the rest of them had taken for granted ever since the skywalker trade and Jiraiya's subsequent adoption all those years ago. Now, she was about to lose everything she'd earned, with no guarantee and little agency when it came to ever getting it back.

He could only move on.

"Our first priority needs to be the other Gōketsu," he said. "In particular, I'm worried about Noburi, Mari, and Yuno. Without Noburi, my research slows down massively and Operation Twilight becomes a lot less viable as a race against time. On top of that, it seems like a natural move for Itachi to take them hostage to force us out of hiding. Obviously, that can't be allowed to happen. Our family needs to be out of Leaf before Akatsuki discover they need the leverage.

"Does that sound right to you three? If I'm exaggerating the danger, then obviously they need to stay in Leaf. I would never ask anyone to go through all the trauma and peril of going missing again unless there was no other choice."

"I don't know why you even need to ask," Kagome-sensei said. "We just watched those Akatsuki stinkers kill the Hokage and make Leaf pay for it. They're not going to stop at a little torture and murder when the stakes are high. Heck, those lunatics would probably do it just for fun if they could get away with it."

This time, Kei and Snowflake's combined glare could have frozen the air hard enough to create an air dome without any seals.

"What? What did I say?"

Hazō sighed once more. "Kei, Snowflake, not now, please."

"Stupendously insensitive though Kagome's comments may be," Kei said coolly, "I am inclined to concur with their essence. While there is a non-negligible possibility that Akatsuki will choose not to risk the stability of AMITY with further aggression against Leaf–their saner members must be aware that they have pushed their mandate to the breaking point–the stakes are simply too high as both parties' rift research surely grows closer to completion. Besides, said saner members are clearly not in a position to fully restrain the rest.

"Our loved ones may possess information regarding our activities, locations, and further plans, or may have indirectly noticed hints of which they themselves are as yet unaware. Furthermore, as you say, their abduction may serve to compel our return, and with multiple hostages available, it would be… only rational to torture one to apply proper pressure and make the point clear."

She hesitated. "Hazō, you have considered the possibility that others outside the immediate family are likewise vulnerable? You and I may be aware of the relative feebleness of our bonds with the others we have sworn to lead and protect, but Akatsuki may not be, or may believe that they will possess sufficient weight in aggregate. There is a vast and unbridgeable gap between the clan head who surrenders their seat before departing on a mission from which they do not expect to return, as Kani Mukan did, and one who abandons their people even in the knowledge that they are about to be placed in danger–much less when they are the indirect cause of that danger."

"I know," Hazō said. "It's not like I had a choice, Kei."

"I did not intend to imply otherwise," Kei said quickly. "My point is public perception, both insofar as Akatsuki may expect you to feel this way and act accordingly and insofar as it will be an obstacle to face in the event of a triumphant return. I very much fear that the populace at large, oblivious to the apocalyptic nature of the Akatsuki threat and seeing only that the missing-nin have bribed our way into Leaf a second time, will not be inclined towards acceptance and forgiveness.

"But that is a problem for a future it feels radically optimistic to even hope for. Our discussion pertains to the dispiriting present."

"Right," Hazō agreed uncertainly. "The fact is, though, that a mass extraction isn't realistic. First off, these people are generally going to be more loyal to the Will of Fire than to us. It only takes one to refuse to go missing and go to the authorities. Naruto being forced to act before the family can exfiltrate would be a catastrophe. Secondly, the more people are involved, the harder it will be to maintain stealth. Mari is an expert at getting out when a mission's gone to hell, but even she can only work so many miracles. Reo can't even use skywalkers.

"I know you feel responsible for the ex-KEI ninja, Kei, but this time round, we're going to have to count on our ex-Coordinator Hokage to do what we can to protect them, and hope that it's enough. Maybe he'll put them under ANBU watch, or into safehouses or something."

Kei bowed her head. "It is not as if I can deny anything you say. I have considered the same arguments and more during my hours standing guard against the Hyenas, a dozen terrible futures contesting over my imagination. But… I hate it, Hazō. What has it all been for, if I cannot even protect those in my care–worse, if my actions place them in danger they did not consent to?"

Silence. What more was there to say? Even Kagome-sensei had to imagine the possibility of Honoka being taken. Or if not, Hazō would choose to come back in his shark before pointing it out.

"We can stretch as far as Tenten and Fujisawa, at least," Hazō said. "Shikamaru is as untouchable as anyone in Leaf short of the Hokage–"

"For all that's worth," Kagome-sensei added bitterly.

Kei closed her eyes. After a few seconds, she opened them again.

"I am losing my patience. Kagome, do you recall what we discussed the other night?"

"Which part?"

"Your comment logically implies that, as Akatsuki are both able and willing to murder the Hokage without consequences, they will also be both able and willing to murder Shikamaru should they judge it desirable. This is plausible, and as an observation, it could even be of value in a hypothetical scenario where we needed to evaluate Shikamaru's safety. However, everyone present is already aware that Akatsuki could murder my husband and best friend at any time. The reminder is both unnecessary and hurtful."

"Oh," Kagome-sensei said, crestfallen. "I'm an idiot. A great big stinking idiot. I'm so sorry, Kei."

"Supposing," Kei went on, "that Akatsuki feel any restraint whatsoever, they will balk at abducting or otherwise taking extreme hostile action against the head of Leaf's most important clan. The same cannot be said of Tenten or Miyuki, KEI ninja whose disappearance would have only a limited impact on Leaf's military capability, and less still on its politics. I wish to believe that, as Hazō observes, the Eighth will feel some special responsibility for the vulnerable minority to whom he once swore additional oaths, and perhaps even some nepotistic concern for a close friend's lovers. However, if a choice must ever be made between those particular shinobi and Leaf's continued survival, I am unable to believe that he would not make the rational decision.

"With that in mind, yes, I wish to extract those two as soon as possible, or at least to offer them the option. Tenten has already once refused to compromise her principles in order to be with me, and Miyuki is a true believer in the Will of Fire in a way that we are not and never can be. Still, at worst, neither of them will take steps to prevent the rest of the family's escape."

"Good," Hazō said. "We can do that. Mari can easily get them messages–off the top of my head, don't Yuno and Fujisawa hang out all the time?–and for now, they're going to be under much less scrutiny than the others. With her guidance, they should have no problem slipping away with no one the wiser."

"They are likely to be interrogated sooner or later once it emerges that I have betrayed the village," Kei noted. "However, the Hokage is aware that actually receiving actionable information would be a disaster, so it is likely that he will avoid deploying the Yamanaka, and ideally delay questioning until any potential information is no longer actionable–a gap allowing for successful exfiltration."

"I'll leave composing the messages to you," Hazō said. "Not that Mari can't be convincing, but if we have to persuade them that this is the right course of action to begin with, then it has to be someone they know and trust.

"Now, since we seem to have a consensus, on to practicalities. Any objections to letting Mari take point on exfiltration and contact us via Noburi once they're safely out?"

"None."

"None."

"I mean, how else were we going to do it?"

"Pretty much," Hazō said. "We are stupidly lucky to have Mari, and always have been."

Kei gave him a look loaded with an essay's worth of meaning. Hazō had time to read the introduction, discussing how they'd only ever needed Mari's skills because she kidnapped them from their families and dragged them to the Swamp of Death, before he decided to leave thinking about it for another time.

"We can set up a dead drop for Noburi, so if Akatsuki are opening our mail, they'll think we're on the move like we're supposed to be and don't have time to chat. I'm thinking some innocent, non-runic sealing notes for the main body. That's plausible if we're afraid of dying en route and all that value being lost, and hopefully, if Itachi looks at it, he'll recognise that it doesn't look like rift research."

"Itachi is a veteran shadow clone user," Snowflake pointed out, "and he knows about Noburi. The notion of multi-threaded research would hardly be unimaginable to him. Besides, in what way do you expect this evidence to affect his actions? He will not choose to retract his call for your return so lightly, nor will it allay his suspicions when he learns that you would rather go missing than report for interrogation."

"Fine," Hazō said. "It probably won't accomplish anything. But it also doesn't cost me anything–copying out a bunch of notes is hardly a big strain when I have a ton of shadow clones."

Snowflake's eyes narrowed. "Yes, of course. Why not create and destroy a few unique divergent perspectives for the purpose of trivial manual labour that you expect to accomplish nothing?"

"...On second thought, it would be safer to use the Iron Nerve anyway," Hazō said. "Can't risk copying errors when someone might use those notes for research some day." He had carefully avoided stepping into that trap array so far, and this was no time to change his mind.

"Anyway," he said, "the real purpose of the notes is so I can throw in some seals to help with the exfiltration–darkness domes, extra skywalkers, and so on. It must suck for the Gōketsu to have to spend months with both of their elite sealmasters gone."

"I hope the kids are getting on fine," Kagome-sensei muttered. "Noburi would tell us if there'd been any estate-melting sealing failures, right?"

"Of course he would," Hazō reassured him. Probably. Unless he decided that bad news Hazō couldn't do anything about would just distract him from his research.

Sage's ballsack, Hazō could totally see Mari telling Noburi to filter the news like that. Leaf might be a snake-filled crater right now, or the Hagoromo might have started a gay revolution for Naruto to have to violently put down, or Mari might have decided to experiment with the economy after all, or…

"I assume this will also be our opportunity to instruct Mari to exfiltrate?" Kei asked.

"...Right." Hazō forced his mind back onto more tractable problems. "I'll send her a letter telling her what to do to prepare for my return–gather documents and reports, make sure the right clanspeople are available for me to catch up with, notify all the business partners who I owe meetings, all that–and ask her to check with Ishikawa-sensei about Honoka's progress at the Academy, for Kagome-sensei's peace of mind."

"This is code for 'go missing ASAP, with no further contact until you have left the Fire Country," Kei explained to Kagome-sensei. "We are all aware that you trust Ishikawa's judgement as much as you would trust a Hyūga to keep his Byakugan deactivated while alone in the Gōketsu vault."

"The stinker said she had hereditary ageometria," Kagome-sensei spat. "Maybe if he'd ever explained why the interior angles add up to 180 degrees, or–"

"A monster," Kei agreed. "In the unlikely event that the opportunity ever arises, I will personally see to his doom now that he has served his purpose."

"Finally," Hazō said, "I have a thought about the hostage situation. You're right that we can't guarantee Akatsuki won't pick someone to be a hostage, no matter who we exfiltrate. The only way to protect ourselves from that for sure is to use the ultimate shinobi defence."

"Don't be there," the other three recited.

"If Akatsuki can't contact us, they can't coerce us, even with all the hostages in the world. That means we have to isolate ourselves from Seventh Path communication, which is their only means of reaching us when they don't know our location."

"Viable," Kei agreed. "I am currently far from the Pangolin heartlands where most of my contractors are located, and Pantsā has no interest in undermining my military utility by forcing me to attend to extraneous matters on the Human Path, much less casting me into Akatsuki's jaws. I am confident that the ruthlessly-organised Pangolin military can filter or sever communications at will."

"I don't spend much time with my spiders anyway," Kagome-sensei said. "I tend to creep them out. They say it's not natural how my organs are all on the outside of my exoskeleton, and the little ones always ask me what happened to the rest of my legs. They mean well, I know, but it does get tiring after a while."

"Can you put something more reliable than that in place?" Hazō asked.

"I suggest only permitting contact at a restricted list of locations," Kei said, "known to the clan boss and those individuals who are absolutely necessary for your function as a summoner and can be trusted, in the boss's opinion, to keep an oath of non-communication. I do not mean in terms of intent, since a properly-formed oath is absolute on the Seventh Path, but in terms of competence."

"I foresee a difficulty," Snowflake said. "For the deterrent to be effective, Akatsuki must know that taking hostages will accomplish nothing, as opposed to learning this only after they have abducted various victims and then found that they cannot communicate the fact to us."

"Right," Hazō said. "That's something our summon clans will need to make known. That does open them up to coercion, but I feel like having a furious clan boss between me and Akatsuki, as opposed to just one who's doing me a favour, is more of a win than a loss."

"There is no 'win' here," Kei said quietly. "Even with the most effective countermeasures, if Akatsuki decide to abduct the people in our care and torture them for information, or on general principles, we will be powerless to stop them. This is… damage mitigation. Until we can reverse the course of the world, until our momentum overpowers human nature itself, everything we ever do will only be damage mitigation."

"I know that," Hazō said. "But we're about to slay the world's greatest monsters and become the heroes who saved it from an age of tyranny. Then, as an encore, we'll conquer the afterlife and bring back the dead. Kei, you are about to see Uplift gather a hell of a lot of momentum."

-o-​

You have received 4 + 1 (Brevity) + 1 (Fun-to-write) = 6 XP.

-o-​

Hazō privately prayed to Lord Jashin. Apparently, the dead leopards were not sufficient for him to receive any tangible sign of the deity(?)'s attention, unless cutting his finger during weapons maintenance counts.

Snowflake performed the Nara ninjutsu tests in private, explaining that if Hazō, in learning more about how they worked, inadvertently discovered a Nara clan secret, or worse, a hard counter to a Nara clan secret (e.g. if Nara ninjutsu were unusable in the vicinity of a darkness dome), Kei would be obliged to report this to Shikamaru, and then things would get complicated for all concerned. In the event, she found that the techniques she knew either did not interact with the seal (because they did not rely on environmental shadows) or had a weak synergy (because the domes blocked the Nara user's line of sight to the target as normal).

-o-​

What do you do?

Voting closes on Jul 13, 2024 at 1:00 PM

 

[Velorien]

Bonus Update: Schrödinger's Farewell​

Envelope A (READ THIS FIRST)

If you are reading this, I assume you are following Contingency P27 as instructed. If not, stop reading immediately and do not resume until the P27 protocols are in effect. They are to remain in effect until you have finished reading the messages indicated at the end of this letter, as well as during any subsequent discussion.


Dear Tenten and Miyuki,

I wish this were another social letter, sharing trivial anecdotes from my mission while awkwardly circumnavigating the endlessly deep whirlpool of how much I miss you. Unfortunately, this is the other kind of letter.

As you are aware, I am presently on a self-assigned long-term research mission, serving as advisor and bodyguard to Hazō alongside Kagome. For both your safety and ours, I cannot yet provide additional details, save to say that this mission is essential to Leaf's welfare and potentially its survival. If this seems like hyperbole, recall that Hazō is the inventor of skywalkers, which transformed the face of warfare, and skyslicers, which have slain vast alien abominations and Akatsuki members both, as well as other exceptional seals whose time, I fear, will yet come.

Now, Uchiha Itachi has demanded our return for interrogation, at which time he will judge our mission to be a threat to Akatsuki and eliminate us, even at the risk of reprisal from Leaf. Just as transpired immediately after the Seventh's murder, the Hokage was threatened with Leaf's annihilation and submitted to the demand.

Our mission remains our priority, and we cannot continue it if assassinated or in Akatsuki's hands. Thus, we have elected to defy the Hokage's unwilling order. In other words, we have gone missing.

To recapitulate, all of us remain loyal to the Village Hidden in the Leaves. We recognise the Eighth Hokage as our legitimate leader, and our only goal is to protect the village we have come to love and the many people with whom we have forged deep bonds. We believe that completing this mission is the best way to do so, and that the Hokage would agree wholeheartedly were he not being forced to choose between us and Leaf's immediate survival.

Thus we come to the important part. We believe that as soon as Akatsuki recognise that we do not intend to return, they will seize those close to us for both interrogation and leverage. Our immediate family are already preparing to leave Leaf without the Hokage's knowledge and join us on the mission. I wish urge you to do likewise.

I appreciate the magnitude of the request. To any shinobi raised in Leaf, this is a betrayal of the Will of Fire and of all one's comrades. I do not ask this of you lightly. However, we are confident that if you remain in Leaf, you will be abducted and tortured or killed. Akatsuki retain the legal right to enter and leave Leaf at will, and as you can see, the Hokage is unable to reject a demand that can be expected to result in our deaths. It pains me to say this, but if this is true for Gōketsu Hazō and Nara Kei, it will certainly be true for Tenten and Fujisawa Miyuki–or if not officially, then in the dead of night, or when you next leave Leaf on a mission.

I am not inviting you to hide in the woods (though if that is your choice, I will accept it). I am inviting you to participate in a mission we believe worth bringing Akatsuki's full wrath down on ourselves. We are confident that, should it succeed, the Hokage will have both the will and the ability to repatriate us as heroes–and you, should you decide to join us. However, even were it not so, we would persevere. Leaf's future requires us to succeed, even if we cannot be part of it.

If you choose to leave, open Envelope B and destroy Envelopes C1 and C2 unread. If you choose to remain, open Envelopes C1 (Miyuki) and C2 (Tenten) and destroy Envelope B unread.

I do not pray, but please know that, whatever you decide, your safety is foremost in my thoughts.

Kei

-o-​

Envelope B (READ ENVELOPE A FIRST)

[several maps of rendezvous points, with associated meeting times]

[a number of exfiltration plans, each over 300 words]

[preparations and equipment checklist for first-time missing-nin]

-o-​

ENVELOPE C1 (FOR MIYUKI; READ ENVELOPE A FIRST)

Dear Miyuki,

If you are reading this, then this is likely our farewell. In the future I dream of, I will return to Leaf triumphant, only to perish of embarrassment when I face a Miyuki who has read this letter. As ever, I write on the assumption that my dream will not come true.

I am appalling at opening my heart to others. I do so with excruciating slowness. I fear that my hope, a candle flame I can barely light and must shield with my entire body lest it flicker, will be extinguished by reality. I fear that I will be rejected as the other recognises the self-evident truth that there is nothing in me worth loving, and then I will have no choice but to accept it myself once again. I fear that I will accept the other as part of my own heart, only to be abandoned, to be made forever less, and to take another step down the path to the self-chosen isolation that I once believed to be my fate.

Thus, I hope you understand what it means for me to confess that over the last year, perhaps even longer given my atrocious self-awareness, I have been gradually falling in love with you.

It has been a slow and difficult process, marked by extensive denial and futile bursts of resistance. It has also been as inexorable as the erosion of rocks to sand, as rain falling from the clouds, as the coming of adulthood. Still, I find myself wishing that I live long enough to complete it.

I have attempted and failed to resist your optimism, like the dance of refracted sunlight that never stops long enough to burn. I have attempted and failed to resist your determination, unyielding once you have identified your heart's desire, no matter how much that heart's desire may seek to keep you at arm's length. I have attempted and failed to resist your inner strength, your indomitable smile in the face of a past darker than mine and chains whose weight you feel not when you stop to reflect, but in every social interaction. I have attempted and failed to resist your endless well of idiosyncratic creativity, your thousand prisms through which I see worlds I did not know existed within my own.

Here and now, when it is too late, I admit defeat. If we meet again, I will finally surrender to you.

Kei


I am aware that you do not know how you feel about me, Miyuki, and in truth, I do not know how I feel about you. How do I tell which sparks are mine, or how many, within the blazing fire of Kei's feelings?

Still, I wish to learn. Belatedly for many of the same reasons as Kei, and more hopeless ones besides, I wish to learn. That is all that I can offer you because that is all that I have. There is still precious little for you to learn about me, and I cannot conceive of what I could offer you that Kei cannot. But at least you have my curiosity, and that is mine alone. Of the countless thousands of people in this world, you are one of the special few of whom I am keen to learn more. You are one of the special few with whom I wish to define a relationship, and explore it to whatever depth we are capable of reaching together.

This is my heart. Please accept it.

Snowflake

-o-​

Envelope C2 (FOR TENTEN; READ ENVELOPE A FIRST)

I promise.

 

[eaglejarl]

Chapter 669: Extreme Exfiltration​

"Hey, got a—whoa!" Noburi spun around, putting a hand over his eyes for good measure.

Mari lifted her head from where it had been reclined on the headrest of her bathtub. Her sybaritic bathtub that had been a birthday present from her son, the Gōketsu Clan Lord and Dragonslayer. It was huge, far more than the tiny woman needed. Huge enough that she could have comfortably shared it with her former not-official husband, the Gōketsu Clan Lord and Fifth Hokage, Master of the Bedroom Arts, Author of blah blah blah.

"Noburi," she scolded. "What do you think you're doing, walking in on me in the bath?"

"I wasn't! What do you think you're doing, leaving the screens down while you bathe?! Seriously, why did you set this thing up in your sitting room?"

"Don't try to make this my fault. What would Yuno say?"

Noburi had survived in the wilderness, faced down enemy ninja of greater number and higher rank, and stood on air two thousand feet in the sky. He was no coward, right? Surely not. Yet, somehow, his knees were a little wobbly right now and his stomach was trying to emigrate.

"Ahhhh..."

Mari laughed. "Don't worry, I won't tell her. To answer your question: it's in the sitting room because it means the servants can get the water out and clean the tub without having to go into my personal room. As to the rest, I'm covered up. What have you got for me?"

Noburi risked a glance over his shoulder and found that Mari had taken the towel off her hair and draped it over the inappropriate bits of herself. The ones that floated above the soapy bubbles that blanketed the rest of the tub. He turned around and extended a packet of papers.

"I just got back from training with the Sages," he said. "Hazō dropped by as we were finishing and he gave me a bunch of stuff to give to you and Gaku. He said yours was something about an intelligence-gathering thing he wants done."

"Oh? Interesting. Let me see." She extended a glistening arm for the packet. Noburi handed it over with a smile and turned to leave.

He was barely halfway down the hall when Mari called him back with a sharp word.

"What?" he demanded, entering the room more carefully this time. Fortunately, Mari was already out of the tub and was vigorously toweling herself off behind a screen.

"Where is Yuno?"

"Downstairs, last I saw. She was making a snack."

"Ooh, that sounds good. Would you mind asking her to dig up one of the sweet'n'sour barbeque seals for me? I ran out in my daily carry collection and keep forgetting to restock. I'll meet you both down there in a minute."

"Uh...sure?" Odd request, but whatever. He headed back the way he had come, half expecting Mari to call him back again just to mess with him.

Yuno was indeed still in the kitchen. Noburi passed on the request and helped her look through the drawer of meal seals until they found one that matched Mari's sudden craving. In part this was Noburi being helpful and in part it was an opportunity to stand close with his wife, shoulders and hips together as they rummaged in the drawer. The heat of her body spread through his jacket and into his arm, focusing his entire awareness onto her. He felt her stiffen slightly, just for a moment, and then relax and go back to rummaging around in the long pull-out drawer of storage seals, each seal holding a bento box filled with a freshly-cooked meal that had been timelocked moments after plating and tossed in a drawer to satisfy whatever random craving a Gōketsu ninja might come up with months or years later. A quick flick of the eyes revealed that yes, she was blushing furiously. He grinned.

Yuno spotted the relevant seal and plucked it out of the pile, only to freeze in place when Noburi took her hand and pulled gently so that she turned to face him. He looped his arms around her waist and leaned his cheek against hers. She was too stunned to react for several seconds, after which she hesitantly put her arms around him and squeezed slightly.

He chuckled, a deep rumbling sound in his broad chest, and pressed a kiss to her temple, then went back to simply holding her.

"You're a really good wife, and I love you," he said quietly, lips almost against her ear.

Yuno had been blushing since the moment he stood next to her but now her face was so red it would have worried the medics. She leaned back slightly so she could see his face, but she did not seek to escape the circle of his thick arms, nor did she take hers from around him.

"Why?" she asked. The soft hesitation, the sheer uncertainty in her voice made Noburi's heart want to break but the hope that also lived there made him feel like a hero of legend.

"Because I do," he said, smiling down at her in amusement. "Because you're caring, and loyal, and smart, and funny in your own very weird way that I'm still learning to understand. And you're beautiful, that's always a bonus. And because you're absolutely terrifying on the battlefield and you use those skills to keep me and those I care about safe. Because you want me, and you see me, in ways that no one else has. Because I feel comfortable telling you things like this and knowing that you won't laugh at me."

"I would never," she promised.

"Oh, I think you'll laugh at me eventually," he said with a chuckle. "I'm sure I'll deserve it for something."

Yuno's red lips parted to reply but the words went unsaid as a faint scuff of a shoe in the hallway presaged Mari's arrival. The warning was just enough time for the two of them to disengage and step back from one another so as not to be seen doing anything so inappropriate as hugging in public.

"Hey, guys," Mari said, sauntering in. She was wearing fuzzy slippers and a loose house robe, something comfortable but far too shabby to be seen in outside the home. It had once been a brilliant green but had faded to tepid teal over the course of many washes. She was plaiting her hair into a loose updo as she walked, but her face lit up when she saw the barbeque seal. She tossed the loose hair over her shoulder and hopped up on one of the stools that ran along the counter.

"Thank you so much for this, guys," she said, activating the seal and conjuring forth the contents. She lifted the lid off the bento; her eyes drifted closed in feline pleasure as she inhaled the spicy scent of the meat. "That's the good stuff."

She lifted the chopsticks out of the box and then paused. "Oh, hey, Yuno—Noburi brought some messages back, and one of them is a letter from Kei for Fujisawa. Would you mind running it over to her before it finishes getting dark? I would do it, but I think it's better from you." She held out a bulging envelope.

"Of course," Yuno said, glancing at the clock on the wall. The gloaming was already upon them; she would be coming back in darkness even if she hustled.

"Thanks."

Yuno took the envelope and disappeared on ninja-rapid feet out of the manor.

"Heard your foot scuff the rug," Noburi said with a sly smile, reaching for a tea seal as he spoke. "You're normally quieter."

"I figured you would appreciate me not walking in on you two canoodling," Mari said, her words staccato and incisive as she pushed the bento aside and stripped off her house robe to reveal a field uniform, complete with dozens of pockets loaded with seals of all stripes. She kicked off the slippers and pulled a pair of battle sandals from one of those seals, sliding them onto her feet and knotting them in place with rapid fingers.

"What are you—"

"Codeword: Riptide," Mari said. "We are going missing again, full explanations later but it's because Hazō said so and he said so because Akatsuki is likely to be after us. Get your stuff, get Yuno's stuff. Everything. Every seal, every book, everything you or Yuno care about. Get into field gear, get hers ready. Anything sensitive, bring it or burn it. We are exfiltrating two minutes after she gets back. You, me, her, no one else. I'm going to go loot Hazō's office for the ninjutsu scrolls and burn anything that seems appropriate. Go!"

"But— Right." It took his brain a second to catch up but he dropped his unopened teapot seal and sprinted for the stairs. It could take Yuno anywhere from four minutes to twenty minutes to reach Fujisawa's house, depending on how fast Yuno was traveling and how. Two to fifteen minutes before she started back, depending on whether she simply dropped the letter off and left or if she stopped to chat over tea. (Fujisawa's writing-only communication tended to be slower than speech.) The return trip would probably take longer than the outbound since it would already be dark and Yuno would know of no reason to rush. He had anywhere from ten minutes to an hour to pack up everything he and his wife cared about.

Mari had better have a really good explanation.

o-o-o-o​

The door opened the way ninja open doors: a small crack at first, with the opener standing to the side and bracing it with one foot before opening it the rest of the way once the person knocking was revealed as not a hostile.

Miyuki nodded a welcome to Yuno and tipped her head inquisitively. She stepped back, gesturing an invitation to come inside. Yuno bowed politely but shook her head.

"I apologize," she said, holding out the packet. "I am only here to drop off this package from Kei. I really must get back."

Miyuki packed an entire 'I understand the need but regret the necessity and hope you return again soon' into one brief nod and a slightly crinkling of her eyes. She accepted the packet, bowed her thanks, and closed the door as Yuno turned away. She had the packet slit open and the contents extracted before she had taken three steps back to the fireplace. Three envelopes and a top sheet.

She read the top sheet with a frown.

For my two lights. Please be together when you read these, and know that I regret my absence from you with true pain. I still look forward to eating pea soup and drinking spiced tea and all the other things we discussed as soon as I return.

Kei had been in an unusually affectionate mood when she wrote that, Miyuki thought. There had to have been other phrasings that would have allowed her to hide the code words without being so schmoopy.

She looked out the window, considering. It was fully dark now, and Miyuki wasn't sure if Tenten would be at her apartment or at the Nara estate. Unfortunately, the two places were in opposite directions and the night was chilly already, as well as damp. She had been drawing by the fire when Yuno arrived. Nothing in the coded message stated that the letters were urgent...

She glanced from the sketchpad on the table next to her chair, where there was warmth and light and toasty blankets, to the slivered-moon darkness outside the window. Tenten would be annoyed if she decided that Miyuki had kept the letters from her overly long, but she likely wouldn't be bothered if Miyuki found her first thing in the morning. Which wouldn't be hard, since she would undoubtedly be training at her favorite field.

On the other hand, Miyuki couldn't read her letter until she caught up with Tenten. Did she really want to delay gratification that long?

She looked back and forth from fireplace to window, frowning uncertainly.

o-o-o-o​

"I'm back!" Yuno called as she came through the door, scraping the mud off her sandals before toeing them off and replacing them with house slippers. Mari had undoubtedly finished her barbeque by now, but Yuno hadn't eaten yet and was definitely ready for something. Maybe fish? She remembered seeing a nice salmon filet with ground pepper among the meal seals. That sounded g—

Noburi and Mari were there, wearing full combat gear and skywalker sandals. Noburi had his finger to his lips as he approached and handed her a field uniform before twirling one hand in a 'gather up, time to go' gesture. He turned away and started emptying the bowl of explosive notes that lived on the shelf by the door, stuffing handfuls of them into his pockets and leaving none behind.

Yuno was too well-trained to demand answers in what was clearly a time-critical situation. Instead, she started peeling off her clothes and handing them to Mari to be sealed up while Yuno pulled on the combat gear and the skywalker sandals. Mari handed her a bandoleer of quick-load inserts for the sandals and gave her a quick check-over, tugging on straps and inventorying to make sure that everything was in its place and settled, then standing still so that Yuno could check her as well.

Ninety seconds after Yuno had entered the house, the three were climbing into the nearly moonless sky, chakra swirling constantly through their systems to hold off the exhaustion caused by essentially running up a very steep staircase that happened to be half a mile long.

Behind them, Kei's envelopes remained as unexploded tags that would either earn them two new recruits or a swarm of ANBU racing after them.

---

XP AWARD: 0 The vote was for '[x] Interlude: The Rest of the Gouketsu Go Missing Again'.

Brevity XP: n/a

"GM had fun" XP: 1

Voting remains closed unless @Velorien opens it

 

[Velorien]

Chapter 670: The Manifold Perils of Fujisawa Miyuki​

​

Hazō paced back and forth anxiously between the weird psychedelic mushroom trees of the Toad forest. Noburi had missed his check-in. Noburi was dead. They never made it out of Leaf. Mari missed the message and Akatsuki made their move early. Akatsuki intercepted the message and interrogated her. Naruto decided he wasn't letting Noburi go and seized him as soon as he came back from the Seventh Path. Itachi had been watching the compound and intercepted them. Leaf's hunter-nin had pursuit capabilities they didn't publicise and caught up with the team. Mari had seen the message, weighed her options, and decided to cut ties rather than leave.

"Hazō."

Hazō spun around. "Noburi! You're all right!"

Noburi looked exhausted, shoulders drooping and bags under his eyes. His expression on seeing Hazō was not relieved but grim.

"We set fire to our lives and walked away," Noburi said. "Nobody's all right."

"You're safe," Hazō amended. "Where are you right now?"

"Tea," Noburi said. "There's no sign of pursuit, so we're on a direct path to join you, fast as we can."

Ah.

"Noburi," Hazō said tentatively, "where do you think I am?"

"Somewhere near Crimson State Island, right?"

"...No," Hazō said. "That was a lie for Akatsuki's benefit."

Noburi facepalmed. "And it didn't occur to you to mention that before?"

"You know I couldn't give you my location while you were still in Leaf," Hazō said. "Akatsuki could have questioned you at any time. It's the same reason I went out of my way not to talk about it in our check-ins. I couldn't put it in the note because we don't have a code for 'western Gaikotsu Bay', and in any case I had to think about the worst-case scenario. If you failed to get away and Akatsuki found out our location, it would be game over for everyone."

"Gaikotsu Bay?" Noburi repeated. "You have got to be kidding me. If we have to go around Fire, that's going to take forever."

"Well, if you're near the southern islands where Akatsuki will be looking for me, then I can't be the one to come to you," Hazō pointed out.

"Whatever," Noburi said. "It's not a big deal."

He slid off his barrel and sat down, slumping against the stalk of a vividly purple mushroom tree.

"This sucks," he said with feeling. "Yuno's miserable. Last time she went missing, she didn't have anything–anyone–to lose. This time she had friends, students, even a future she was working towards, and she gave it all up to follow me. I feel like a total bastard, and it wasn't even my order.

"And me? I had a career. I was helping people. I was trusted. I'd just got private tutoring from Tsunade–sort of–which was going to take me to the next level. Now I'm back in the woods and it's like my life never happened.

"Mari's gone quiet. She's not talking any more than she has to, and I'm kind of afraid to push given the state she's in. So it's down to you to explain. What the hell, Hazō?"

Hazō sat down next to him.

"I've been doing runic weapons research to kill Akatsuki, on Naruto's orders. Everything else was just a cover. The message you gave me last time was a contingency trigger to go missing because he couldn't stall them any further."

Noburi silently absorbed this.

"I guess that tracks. The others–Kei, Snowflake, Kagome–did they know when they signed up?"

Hazō shrugged. "I'm pretty sure Kei figured it out because she's Kei, but I couldn't tell anyone. I certainly couldn't tell anyone the Hokage had ordered me to go missing if things went badly.

"I'm sorry for uprooting you all, I really am. But I couldn't come back and have Akatsuki find out I was directly working against them, and once they figured out I'd gone missing, they were bound to go after my family."

"Dammit." Noburi slammed his fist against the stalk beside him, leaving a deep impression. "This was always going to happen, wasn't it?"

"Kind of," Hazō agreed. "I couldn't give up fighting Akatsuki, not with the world at stake, and they weren't going to stop monitoring me. I had to get away, and I had to go missing once they forced Naruto to order me back.

"But maybe I could have avoided it. If I'd just been smarter, better at research, maybe I could have come up with a superweapon by now, and we could be back in Leaf killing Akatsuki instead of… this."

"It's fine," Noburi said after a second. "I mean, it's not fine, this whole thing is a steaming pile of bullshit and I hate everything about it, but if I was going to complain about you being dumb, I'd have been doing it way before now."

"Noburi, you complain about me being dumb all the time. Just the other day, you told me how much of an idiot I was for forgetting to write to Ino, and how lucky I was to have a brother with a gift for plausible excuses."

"I'm pretty sure she didn't buy it, for the record," Noburi said. "You're really going to have to make it up to her when…"

He winced.

"We're not coming back, are we?"

"We are," Hazō insisted. "We're going to kill Akatsuki and be welcomed back as heroes. If you think skywalkers were worth adopting a pack of missing-nin over, wait till you see what Naruto's prepared to do for Akatsuki-killing runes, not to mention all the other craziness I'm working on."

"I guess we'll see," Noburi said. "You'll forgive me if I'm not at my most optimistic right now."

He levered himself to his feet.

"I'd better get back. I can't leave Yuno alone right now. You said western Gaikotsu Bay?"

"Actually, no," Hazō said. "I mean yes, but if you have to make it all the way from Tea, then it would be better to meet up in northern Iron. That's our first rendezvous point with Tenten and Fujisawa, assuming they take Kei's warning seriously and come join us."

Noburi froze. "Fujisawa's coming?"

"We hope so," Hazō said. "She's on the list of people we expect Akatsuki to take hostage sooner or later. Why, is there a problem?"

"No," Noburi said quickly, his eyes wide. "It's fine. No problem at all."

Hazō stood up. "Noburi, I'm your brother and your clan head. Talk to me."

"You're not my clan head anymore," Noburi said, without hostility. "I doubt there's even going to be a Gōketsu Clan by the end of the week, between the treason and Mari taking or torching the good stuff."

"Fine, whatever," Hazō said, shoving that thought in a deep vault and throwing away the key. "I'm still your brother. If there's something wrong, I want to help."

Noburi looked away.

"It's nothing," he said. "I just think… she's cute. Fujisawa, I mean. Easily five stars."

"I guess?" Hazō said. "Assuming you're into girls who can't smile."

"I had a crush on Kei, didn't I?"

Hazō laughed.

"I don't mean I have a crush on Fujisawa or anything," Noburi clarified. "I don't really know her, and I've been going out of my way not to know her, just in case, even though she's my wife's best friend and if she's noticed, she probably thinks I hate her. But if we're going to be missing-nin together for however long…"

Hazō nodded.

"I'm not saying I'd cheat on Yuno!" Noburi exclaimed without provocation. "I'm not that kind of guy. But Yuno has razor-sharp intuition for this stuff. If she picks up on her husband being attracted to her best friend… well, there's no scenario that doesn't end in a bloodbath, is there?"

Hazō and Noburi shared an ominous silence.

"We'll figure something out," Hazō said, without confidence. "We still have at least a week before everyone's together. In the meantime, you guys should head for Nuken'in Temple in northern Iron."

"Never heard of it."

"It's not far from the Liberator's fortress," Hazō said. "I'll have the map copied–I mean, I'll copy the map out for you by next check-in.

"Noburi…" he said as Noburi strapped on his barrel. "Tell everyone I'm sorry."

"...Yeah."

-o-​

Kei was moving the instant Snowflake signalled "clear", leaving Hazō and Kagome far behind in her haste to be in that clearing even a second sooner. She needed to know. Needed to see. Nothing else mattered.

Tenten, with her perfect understanding of Kei, was already braced, and did not collapse beneath the sudden impact of her embrace (on skywalkers, there was no need to touch down first before proceeding to her destination). She was… she was here. Alive. Safe. Hers. Holding her, confirming Tenten's existence with her own hands, instantly dispelled a week of nightmares.

However, even for Tenten, Kei's stamina was not infinite. Finally, reluctantly, she disengaged, allowing Snowflake to take her turn.

With her field of view regrettably no longer fully occupied by Tenten, Kei looked around the clearing, a sense of wrongness steadily rising through her body and beginning to curl around her heart.

"Tenten," she asked anxiously, "where is Miyuki?"

The silence, like all Tenten's silences, said everything that needed to be said.

"No…" Kei whispered.

"She trusts you," Tenten said firmly. "But she doesn't trust the Mad Clan Lord.

"Her words," she added apologetically, looking at Hazō.

Hazō nodded absently.

"I should have known," Kei said as the magnitude of her failure began to become apparent. "I should have factored Hazō's reputation into my persuasion. I should have anticipated that she would distrust claims of a grand, Leaf-saving mission from the treasonous megalomaniac–"

"No offence," Snowflake supplemented.

"–and overemphasise the irrationality of my loyalty to same. Of course she would assume that I permitted my love to blind me to the realities of the situation. Perhaps she even believes, not unfairly, that the need to protect you has led me to follow you beyond the point of reason. I should have been clearer. I should have been more convincing. I should have–"

"This was her agency," Tenten said. "Only hers."

The images washed over Kei, the nightmares returned to consume reality. The T&I catalogue available on request from the main office, come to life in Uchiha Itachi's hands. The blazing fire of the Sharingan that even Naruto had been unable to endure. The bloodthirsty madness of Hidan and the cold cruelty of the sealmaster who hollowed out shinobi to use as his puppets.

"It was my responsibility!" Kei exclaimed. "Were it not for me, she would be nothing to Akatsuki! She would be safe!"

Tenten shook her head.

"We chose not to be safe."

Kei's thoughts ground to a halt. "I beg your pardon?"

"Politics. Homophobia. Akatsuki. The un-Uplifted world," Tenten listed. "I knew your enemies. I knew being with you made them my enemies too. So did Miyuki."

She stepped closer to Kei.

"We could have chosen safer lives. No enemies. No lovers. Just us, alone, until we died."

"So it truly is my fault," Kei concluded. "I drew you into an entire world of danger where you did not belong, all out of my own selfishness."

"We chose," Tenten repeated. "Just like you chose to follow Hazō. I am here because of my own choices. Miyuki isn't, because of hers."

Kei stood silent. At least Tenten was safe. Miyuki would be abducted, likely tortured, possibly killed, but at least Tenten was safe. In the back of her mind, a vile, hideous voice whispered relief that at least it had not been the other way around. Kei quashed it as best she could.

"Can anything be done?" she asked Hazō, pleading. If there was ever a moment for his genius to save them…

"I'm sorry," he said. "With Tenten gone missing right after the others, there's no chance of Fujisawa getting away too if she hasn't already. Even Mari couldn't extract her from under that much surveillance."

"We don't know Akatsuki will kidnap and torture your girlfriend," Kagome said with an edge of desperation. "It's not like they know who she is. I barely know who she is. And they're all crazy lunatics with maybe a tenth of a brain between them. I'm sure they'll just overlook her."

"Do not comfort me like a child!" Kei snapped. "This was the entire reason for the envelope system. They were supposed to flee or stay together, because if one left, it guaranteed that the other would immediately come to Akatsuki's attention. Except apparently I failed even at that."

She closed her eyes. She did not wish to see the pity on their faces. Miyuki. Beautiful, indomitable, inventive, innocent Miyuki. Even if Hazō's staggering optimism was validated and they one day returned to Leaf as heroes, it would be too late.

"Please tell me about the mission," Tenten said eventually.

Of course. Kei had failed even to explain what she had asked them to risk everything for.

"Hazō has created a new sealing discipline," Kei began.

"Kei!" Hazō exclaimed.

Kei whirled around. "Hazō, if you believe that after everything that Tenten has sacrificed, I will allow her to be–"

"Excuse me," Snowflake interrupted. "I believe what Kei is attempting to say is that runecrafting is not a clan secret due to Orochimaru's possession of same"–without even knowing what runecrafting was capable of, Tenten gave her a look of utter horror–"nor is Tenten in any position to disclose it to anyone until its existence is in any case revealed by its large-scale deployment against Akatsuki."

"Even if it were a clan secret," Kei noted, "we are missing-nin. It would technically belong to Jin and the others, with ourselves being clanless thieves to be eliminated in order to protect it.

"More to the point, you will note that Tenten has chosen to be here, aligned with Akatsuki's primary target, and not, say, on the eastern continent where she could live in relative safety until our victory or defeat. She is a member of Operation Twilight now, and entitled to full disclosure."

"I concur," Snowflake said. "That said, if you believe that it is both desirable and physically possible to conceal runecrafting from Tenten for however many months while you are conducting regular prototype infusions in her immediate vicinity, and while Kagome, aware of every detail of your research, is also within her immediate vicinity, we can–"

"Fine," Hazō said, holding up his hands, "you win. Tenten, we're out here researching runes, which are three-dimensional seals with vastly more potential power than ordinary paper seals, with the specific goal of killing Akatsuki, on Naruto's orders."

Tenten nodded. "To prevent them from opening the rift?"

Hazō looked at Kei.

"Nothing about the rift race is classified," Kei said impatiently. "The existence of the rift is known to the senior members of all council clans, and doubtless to anyone they gossip with. All of the pieces have been not only available but in plain sight ever since Itachi blurted out Akatsuki's interest in dimensionalism research in front of the entire Clan Council and it emerged that you were the only person conducting same."

Hazō sighed. "That's right. They're planning to open the rift and bring back Pain from the afterlife, which would allow them to conquer the world. Considering Pain's the kind of man who called Hidan a friend and enabled his massacring tendencies, I don't intend to find out what he'd be like as a global dictator. We're going to wipe out Akatsuki, open the rift ourselves, and then rescue Akane, Jiraiya, and as many of Leaf's heroes as we can. Hopefully, all of that will be enough justification for Naruto to accept us as Leaf ninja again."

Tenten nodded again. "How can I help?"

After a pause that made it clear Hazō had no idea, Kei spoke in his place.

"We are missing-nin now. We will be hunted, not only by Akatsuki, but also by lesser threats, such as the hunter-nin of every village in the world aware that the creator of skywalkers is now fair game. We must be ready to hide, flee, or defend ourselves as necessary, above all protecting Hazō while he conducts his research. Kagome, please brief Tenten on bystander sealing safety at the earliest opportunity."

"I can do that," Kagome said enthusiastically. A younger Kei might have taken it for delight at acquiring a new target to inflict his obsessions on, as opposed to relief at finally having some way to engage with the complex and awkward situation he found himself in (and also delight at acquiring a new target to inflict his obsessions on).

"We should get going," Hazō said. "This is probably the last place in the world where anyone would cooperate with hunter-nin, but we can't say for certain that nobody saw us come down. We can figure out further logistics once Mari and the others join us tomorrow."

As Hazō handed Tenten a fresh set of skywalker seals, Kei took one last look back, towards Leaf and the girl she would never finish falling in love with.

-o-​

You have received 2.5 x 7 + 0.5 (arbitrary rounding) + 1 (Fun-to-Write) = 19 XP.

-o-​

What do you do?

Voting closes on Jul 20, 2024 at 1:00 PM

 

[eaglejarl]

Interlude: Home Defense​

"Smith! Get out here!"

Master Ōshirō sighed. He jerked his chin at his apprentice and nodded towards the metal that the master had been working. Takatoshi set down the tools that he had been cleaning and hurried to take over the work of keeping the metal hot so that Master Ōshirō didn't lose all the work he had done.

The master smith emerged from his forge into the front room of his smithy. It wasn't open at the moment, meaning that Clan Lord Hagoromo had barged in past a sign saying "Closed".

"How may I help you, My Lord?" he said, bowing deeply.

"I need a new hold-out knife. That traitorous Gōketsu whelp destroyed mine a while back and I haven't been able to find anything already existing that met the same standard and I'm sick of carrying garbage. You're supposed to be the best smith around. How long will it take?" He paused for only a moment and then remembered to add, "Money doesn't matter." He pulled a heavy sack from his sleeve and dropped it on the table. It hit with a thunk that said it contained enough metal coin that you could use the bag to beat someone to death without half trying. He did not, however, push it across to Ōshirō. It was a demonstration, not a delivery.

So, this ass barged past a 'Closed' sign, acted rude, and now he was insulting Lord Gōketsu? Lord Gōketsu, who had saved Ōshirō when his forge burned down, who had given him zero-interest loans and generous profit rates on consignment selling where the sales were performed by skilled negotiators, far better that Ōshirō had ever managed on his own? The smith's income had more than doubled since he started working with the Gōketsu and he wasn't having to do all the bullshit parts that he hated. He usually didn't even have to take orders—one of the Gōketsu factors would come out periodically to check on his availability, with a list of potential commissions in hand. Ōshirō would choose the ones that looked interesting, the Gōketsu would be responsible for telling the losers that their commission wasn't able to be handled at this time and fob them off on some other smith. When the work was done another Gōketsu would swing by to pick it up and deliver it. Ōshirō only had to work with his beloved steel and leave all the annoying bits to someone else.

Ōshirō started to open his mouth to refuse, then smiled. There was a much better solution.

"It would be my honor to provide you with such a weapon, My Lord," he said, bowing deeply. "Although I fear I am backed up a bit at the moment. I have an order from another clan which is going to take some time." Meaning it would take Sagebedamned forever and this rich prick could dangle. If he was waiting on Ōshirō then he wouldn't go to another smith in the meantime.

"How long?"

Ōshirō shook his head regretfully. "It is difficult to say, My Lord. Perhaps three weeks? It depends. They have an extension clause such that if they like the work then they can expand the order a certain amount." Yes, the entirely hypothetical client could expand their entirely hypothetical order indefinitely.

"Hmph. Who is it? I can get you out of it."

"I apologize most profusely, My Lord." Deep bow, hold. "I ask your understanding that I can't give names of customers or details of their orders. Would you want me telling someone that I had made a holdout for you, or the size and shape of that blade, or where you keep it?"

"...I suppose not. Very well. I'll pick it up in three weeks."

"Respectfully, My Lord, three weeks is not the date that the blade will be ready. It is the earliest that I might be able to start on the piece, and even that is uncertain. It might be somewhat longer before I can begin."

"Hmph. Very well. How much?"

Oh no. You weren't getting out of here that easily. First let's waste a bit more of your time.

"I am certain the money will be of no object to you, Great Lord. Before we deal with that, why don't you tell me more precisely what you need? Blade shape and length, details of the hilt, and where you intend to keep it, if you please."

Suspicion lit the ninja's eyes. "Why do you need to know where I keep it?"

Ōshirō frowned. "Have the smiths you worked with in the past not asked? They failed you. Obviously, I will be providing the sheath and straps to go with the blade, and they must be set differently if you wish to keep it in at your wrist, ankle, shoulder, or elsewhere. Additionally, the blade itself must be perfect for its hiding place. For example, if you will wear it on the top of your wrist then the hilt must be designed not to catch on the bone, here." He tapped the protuberance on the outside of his left wrist. "If you wish a thicker blade then it will not be easily concealable on your wrist and should be worn at your neck, belly, or ankle. If you wish for—"

"Yes, yes, fine, fine. I want one like my father made for me, the one that pig Gōketsu destroyed. Here." He sketched it on the counter with his finger.

The price doubled at the words 'that pig Gōketsu' but outwardly Ōshirō only bowed. "Excellent, My Lord. Allow me to get some parchment and charcoal. We can design something more precise."

And then he would demand a truly eye-watering price, enough to make this asshole's brain explode.

o-o-o-o​

"—and then we got back," the visiting ninja was saying to the bedridden one as Ageha entered the room.

"No sign of the traitors, then?" the patient demanded. "Damn, I wish I had been able to go on the patrols. I always knew that anyone who would betray their original village would betray the Leaf. No trace of the Will of Fire in them."

Ageha's ears had pricked up at the word 'traitors'. The little shit had to be talking about the Gōketsu and that nonsense about them 'going missing'. Ha! As if Great Lord Gōketsu would go missing! The man had done more for the village than any other three clans. The idea that he could be lacking the Will of Fire was ludicrous. Either he had fallen in battle or he was on a secret mission or something. He definitely had not gone missing.

Ageha kept those thoughts locked away in the vault deep behind her eyes, the one that every civilian held. The one where they could hide all of their anger and hatred away from the light in a place arrogant ninja couldn't see.

Outwardly, she said only, "Good afternoon, honored ninja. I am Ageha, one of the civilian auxiliaries. I am here to take your lunch order, if you please." She extended the menu with both hands, holding a deep bow to prevent any risk of the ninja looking through her eyes and into the vault.

"What? Oh, yes." He took the menu from her and skimmed through it. "I'll have option four. Extra pickles."

"Yes, honored ninja." He would get his extra pickles, and also an extra helping of spit in his tea and a little snot mixed into his soup. Also, the chalkboard on the wall said that the attending nurse was Koruri; she was a KEI ninja and would likely be interested to hear about this rude man's comments.

It took only two minutes to find Koruri; the woman was starting her rounds and currently halfway down the ward, only three doors from SpitDrinker's room.

"Good evening, honored nurse," Ageha said, bowing until her back was parallel to the floor.

"Little mother, I've told you before, you don't need to do that," Koruri said with amusement. "You are old enough to be my grandmother. What did you want?"

"I wished to verify a food request, ma'am," Ageha said, keeping her eyes down. "The honored ninja in room seven. When I entered to take his dinner order he and his friend were having a conversation." She leaned just slightly on the final word before quickly moving on. "When they paused, I asked for his dinner order. He said he wanted option four, the beef teriyaki and vegetables, but I was to provide extra pickles. I wished to be certain that extra pickles would not interfere with his treatment."

Koruri's brow furrowed very slightly. Ageha had been working at the hospital forever; she knew perfectly well that extra pickles wouldn't interfere with the treatment for anyone who was allowed food. Food verifications like this were for when a patient requested sake, or extra spicy food that might be harmful to the digestion, or something with specific herbs that reacted poorly with some of the medications the hospital used in various cases. Pickles?

"You are most dutiful, little mother. If I may ask, was the conversation they were having in any way relevant to the patient's condition?"

"No, honored nurse. The patient was saying something about one of the clans...the Gōketsu, I believe, although he didn't mention them by name."

Koruri's face donned its professional mask, the one that prevented patients from becoming alarmed when things were going badly. If Ageha was bringing this to her then clearly the little shit had said rather more than how the Gōketsu enjoyed their tea.

Koruri's little sister, a civilian, had gone through the Gōketsu Educational Department's curriculum and thus she knew her numbers and letters. Knew her numbers rather better than most clan kids, if you were being honest. Chisato was mad for numbers, learning everything she could get her hands on. More than that, she had read poetry and maps and histories. She had read enough that she might have trouble finding a husband, but Koruri could not bring herself to disapprove. The light in Chisato's face every time she came home from the GED made lamps unnecessary.

"Oh, interesting," she said, in a tone that indicated she was only being polite and didn't really care. "What was he saying?"

"I do not wish to be seen to carry tales, honored nurse," Ageha said with another deep bow. "I suspect he will be more than happy to speak energetically about the Gōketsu if asked." The slight and completely deniable twist to the word 'energetically' indicated that it would not be a positive energy.

Koruri smiled. "Ah, very wise. I should not be asking for gossip, little mother. Thank you for reminding me. Now that I think about it, I do remember noticing some perturbations in the patient's gut the last time I scanned him." Perturbations that would absolutely be there after she spent a few minutes 'checking him over'. "It's probably nothing but could indicate an imbalance in his bile, in which case spicy foods could be a problem. In fact, why don't you tell the kitchen to note him down as on restricted diet. Marshweed only, boiled for no less than thirty minutes. No salt in his diet, no spices."

Marshweed was easy to digest and very healthy but it tasted like a skunk that had rolled in a midden before dying and rotting in the sun for a few weeks. And if you boiled it for thirty minutes it fell apart into a glutinous green mass that looked and felt like snot.

"Thank you for the instruction, honored nurse," Ageha said, bowing deeply but allowing the angry little smile to remain on her face just long enough for Koruri to see it as she straightened up. "I shall pass it on to the chef immediately."

o-o-o-o​

"To seeing the backside of those Gōketsu fuckers!" Motoyoshi shouted, his words clear despite the fresh glow in his cheeks from the shots of sake he had already downed.

His three friends hoorahed and raised their glasses high, clinking them together and then slamming them back.

Pouring a drink a few drunks down the bar, Daiji forced himself not to frown as his professionally-sharp ears caught the words. Motoyoshi was a clan ninja, Daiji was a civilian. Expressing disapproval was not going to go well for the bartender, not even with the protection of the Soggy Tag's owner. Sure, Motoyoshi might get banned from the bar but Daiji would still be in hospital.

"Toldja they weren't real Leaf," one of Motoyoshi's friends said. Daiji didn't recognize him; he wasn't wearing a crest but he carried himself like clan. "Not a flicker of the Will of Fire in any of 'em. Lord First would be ashamed that they ever poisoned our soil with their feet. Kampai!" He slammed back the last of his sake, went to pour another, and found the bottle empty. "More, more, more!" He started drumming rhythmically on the bar with both hands, an annoying pursuit that his friends immediately joined.

"Of course, gentlemen," Daiji said, hurrying over. "It sounds like you're celebrating."

"Damn righ'!" said the third friend, a Hyūga that Daiji didn't recognize. "Those Gōke'su fuckers 're gone! Betrayed us all. Ran off, the whole lot of 'em. Including that smarmy lil git at their head. Fuckin' asshole." He turned to his friends. "Attacked me one time, y'know? Completely unprovoked. We had a big conference, all the sealmasters. He walks in and jumps me. Sucker punched me with no warning."

"That's not what I heard, Makito," Motoyoshi said, wagging a finger and grinning. "You put your hand on him and he locked you up."

"Didn't happen! He sucker punched me!"

"Ahhhh!" the second friend said, noogying Hyūga in the shoulder. "He beat you hand-to-hand? What a chump you are! Can't believe you lost to a traitor, Makito!" He leaned in close. "D'you think it's true that he ran off because Lady Yamanaka caught him cheating on her?"

"Probably with his cat," Hyūga grumbled. "Always looked like a guy who would fuck cats."

"Gentlemen, looks like your bottle needs a refill," Daiji said, coming up from under the bar where he had been prepping. Honestly, it was nice to have polite customers once in a while. Sure, they were ninja and therefore assholes. Sure, they were drunk and therefore even worse assholes. Sure, they were shoveling muck on the back of the man who had given Daiji's family a house when theirs was destroyed in the Collapse, ensuring that they didn't freeze to death. Still, at least they had kept yammering and ignoring him long enough for him to finish spiking their drinks.

"Yes!" Motoyoshi said, waving his empty glass high. A half dozen other patrons were clamoring for drinks farther down the bar. "Another bottle!"

"Here you go," Daiji said, sliding a bottle across the bar to each of them. The men looked surprised, clearly having expected a single bottle to split. "Your stamps, please?" He held the board out in front of them. It was a clever innovation, invented right here at the Soggy Tag: patrons never had to open their purses. Instead, when they came through the door they chose a stamp from the bucket and signed themselves in with their name and the stamp to show which they were using. From then on, each drink came with a tab board covered in wax. The server marked down what you had ordered and you pressed your stamp into the wax next to the mark. At the end of the night, you settled up. It saved a lot of time, and it meant that people weren't thinking about how much they were spending.

These three certainly weren't thinking about the fact that Daiji had just handed them each a large bottle of the most expensive sake in the house. They also probably weren't thinking about the possibility that he might have spiked their drinks with the grain alcohol that the bar used for cleaning the counters. Not enough to leave them blind, but enough to get them good and hammered. Worst case, he could keep pushing drinks on them until they were bled dry of coin. Best case, they got drunk enough to start a fight and get banned from the Tag for a month, or forever if this was a second offense. (The possibility that they might end up dead from the fight wasn't likely. It would be nice, but fights in the Tag were rarely lethal.)

The three ninja glanced back and forth, none of them wanting to be the ones to look cheap by saying that they had only wanted one bottle to share. Daiji held the board with a bland expression until all three of them pressed their stamp to the wax.

"Kampai, gentlemen!" he said, before hurrying off to the next patron.

---

Author's Note: One of our delightful players recently approached me about writing a commission. (I shall leave it up to them if they wish to raise their hand.) They wanted something sweet and healing showing the difference that Uplift had made in Leaf, and they suggested civilians defending the now-missing Gōketsu. I had intended to do this as a separate item from the chapter but it took me until late afternoon to get the gumption together to sit down and write, which is a good sign that I don't have the juice to write an actual chapter. Plus, I was pretty confident even yesterday that I wasn't going to have it; it's been a bad day for a couple of days and I'm finally starting to get past it but I'm not completely out yet. Put all this together and it dawned on me that I could shirk my responsibilities write an interlude instead of a chapter (hopefully one that people would enjoy) and also satisfy my new commission! Woot, everybody wins!

It's way too late now for me to run this past my UK-living co-QMs, so I will say that my intent is for it to be canon and I doubt that will be an issue but it might get reverted to omake status if there's an issue I didn't think of. Also, note that the timespan of this update is not specified; it might be a few days or a few weeks. It doesn't advance the timeline from the players' perspective so it doesn't matter.

"GM had fun" XP: 5

• Fun and wholesome scenes that lifted my spirits when I needed it

Vote time! What to do now?

 

[Paperclipped]

Chapter 671: Team Uplift Traditions​

They didn't talk again until they were safely away from the clearing and back at their temporary base. Kagome-sensei went off to check the perimeter and Kei and Snowflake to gather the portion of their supplies they'd set aside for Tenten's use (and to silently reintegrate Fujisawa's), leaving Hazō momentarily alone with Tenten.

Hazō remembered his first time going missing. Even years since, he remembered his first and simultaneously endless footfalls down a one-way path, with murderous hunter-nin snapping at the squad's heels and no hope of return even if he did everything right. He remembered the constant, acute awareness that he was now the village's number one enemy; that through no fault of his own, he was now hated, hunted, and doomed to kill or die if he ever ran into his old comrades. How long had it taken him to accept his new way of life? How long before he was able to look beyond pure survival and find the new purpose that he'd eventually name Uplift? Could he have done it on strength of will alone, without constant support from Mari, who'd taken being a missing-nin in stride exactly as if she'd been planning for it from the start, and normalised what would otherwise have been a constant state of heart-rending abandonment and betrayal?

Hazō was the leader now. It was his responsibility to manage the transition for the people in his care, and none more than Tenten, who would actually have been betrayed by her village and forced to flee for her life, only she'd run in advance, making her the betrayer.

"Tenten," he said, putting all the warmth into his voice that he could, "thank you. Really. I've been where you are, more or less, and I get what it must have cost you to leave Leaf with nothing to go on but Kei's words on a piece of paper."

"I was prepared," Tenten said, with gentle denial.

Hazō blinked. "You… were? Kei can't have warned you about the mission. If she knew why we might have to run, then she knew OPSEC would make the difference between life and death."

Tenten shook her head.

"Kei talks about you all the time," she said. "I listen. One day, you'd make her choose between you and Leaf. I needed to choose too."

"Oh," Hazō said after a moment to absorb this. He found himself intensely curious to know what kind of things Kei said about him, especially if they'd led an uninvolved third party to reach that conclusion, but this wasn't the time–and besides, he doubted Tenten was in any hurry to have an extended verbal conversation (even if she'd apparently made stunning progress under Kei's tutelage).

"Still," he said, "it's enormous that you made that choice, no matter how long you had to think. I never got a choice, and I'm almost glad for it when I think about how difficult it must have been for you."

"I learned from the Nara," Tenten said with a small smile. "Kei on one side. Then Snowflake too. Everything else on the other. It…"

She paused to find the right words.

"It hurt, but… it wasn't hard. You choose the side that weighs more."

Huh.

Yeah, it was kind of like that, wasn't it? Hazō had left Ino back in Leaf, even knowing that he'd probably broken her heart, and he might not be able to reverse that just by eventually proving he'd had a good reason. (He'd managed to win Akane back once just by fixing his mistakes, but Akane was Akane, and miracles like her didn't happen twice.) He'd left behind Gaku, Atomu, Honoka, Sasha, and a dozen other Gōketsu who meant something to him when he remembered they existed. He'd left behind hundreds of civilians who'd placed their lives in his hands. He'd left behind projects, aspirations, and ambitions. He'd left behind a torn but apparently salvageable bond with Shikamaru and a potential friendship with Naruto that kept failing to click. He could keep listing people and things he'd lost all day and never run out.

He also didn't question for a second whether he'd made the right decision.

If Hazō ever turned out to be wrong, it was because there had been a more efficient, more reliable option for accomplishing his goals and he'd been too tunnel-visioned to see it. The notion that he'd chosen the wrong goals to begin with was abstract, meaningless, something for future historians to argue about when they had nothing better to do.

Apparently, Tenten was like that too, only her goal was Kei–and once she decided Kei outweighed everything else, it didn't matter that the everything else was also precious and worth giving up her life for.

"The rest of us will make sure we're worthy of your trust," Hazō said. "I promise you that. We won't let you regret your decision.

"I don't think there's much I can add right now. Welcome to Team Uplift, Tenten. Now, I've got a bunch of new seals to scribe, so I'll let Kei take point on helping you customise your loadout, and then there are…" he trailed off when he realised Tenten wasn't listening.

"Tenten?"

Kei appeared beside her. "Ah," she said sheepishly, "this is embarrassing. Hazō, I suspect that over the course of our relationship, I may have given Tenten the impression that, my bond with her aside, there is nothing more"–she looked away for a moment–"nothing more important to my existence than Team Uplift and my place within it. The notion of being included in this most crucial part of my life, from which she was naturally barred as an outsider and expected to be so forever, is perhaps a touch overwhelming."

"..." Tenten added, her face somehow conveying the most exotic mixture of shock, joy, more shock, unease, disorientation, hope, and some extra shock in case anyone missed it the first and second times round.

"You may need to work on the banter," Hazō said with deadpan seriousness, "but you've already checked off the treason, family loyalty, Uplift compatibility, complicated love life, and 'being prepared for me to cause trouble' requirements. All you need now is a distinctive special interest and–"

Tenten tapped her shuriken holster meaningfully.

"–welcome aboard," Hazō concluded.

Kei hugged Tenten, Tenten recovered enough to hug her back, and with that, a fragment of guilt that Hazō hadn't even known he had suddenly melted away.

-o-​

"That's a problem," Hazō said.

"It's a problem, yep," Kagome-sensei agreed. "But hey, the rift is closed!"

At least that was true. Years ago, the bladehorrors, Hazō-imitating monstrosities of razor-sharp steel, had sprung from a rift that looked like a shimmering piece of dark metal in this spot. Now, there was no sign of that metal hovering in the air. That was good.

Unfortunately, Hazō could see the rift's former site. Granite rubble surrounded the old foundations of the box, which varied between a couple inches and a couple feet, all connected by the smooth cuts of a razor edge rather than the jagged fractures of intense force. That was bad.

"So, the bladehorrors got out of the box, and then did… what?" Hazō asked.

Kagome-sensei shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Probably terrorized the nearby everything. It's been years, so the rift closed up, and if the critters are still running around, they're gonna be so spread out that we won't get swarmed. Someone else's problem. Probably."

"It was a good thing we moved camp immediately, then," Hazō said. "I hope everyone remembers where this is."

"That was a good idea you had," Kagome-sensei said. "Checking the team for genjutsu from that cheating-eyeball stinker. Hope they don't get annoyed at needing to run four more hours to meet us."

"It should work out," Hazō said. "I'll run back tomorrow and drop Canvass off to greet them. If she smells followers, she'll dispel and I'll know immediately. Otherwise, she can lead them along my trail."

"Can the stinker genjutsu Canvass?"

"I… I don't think so. Itachi probably wouldn't know how to replicate her sense of smell exactly, and she'd probably notice the slightest mistake, right? She's smelled most of those people before. But…" Hazou hesitated. "I can't say for sure when the Sharingan is involved."

Kagome-sensei scowled and muttered something threatening about the eyeball cheaters. Hazō decided to let his sensei stew. Within a couple hours, he'd probably come up with a half-dozen potential improvements to their contact plan to keep the team safe. Instead, Hazō started the slow process of erecting walls and creating Substitution target chains so he could approach the rift to inspect it.

o-o-o​

"I told you, boy, I don't have any interest in swearing any oaths at my age, least of all to you!" Fukasaku said. "And even if I did tie my soul into a knot for a squirming tadpole of a human, I damn well wouldn't be promising absolute secrecy for something you haven't even told me yet!"

"It's important," Hazō said. "Really, truly important. Not just for my safety and for Noburi's, which are both true, but for the fate of the world."

"And I don't give a flying flea! I'd sooner take an oath to tell everyone. I'll keep it quiet if I want, but I won't be swearing a thing."

Hazō swore (as in, profanely) internally. He really needed the Toad Sages to make the oath so that Akatsuki wouldn't somehow be able to cut through the Toads to get at Hazō and his team, but they were too obstinate. Fukasaku was, at least, and Shima was apparently out and about running errands.

"Fine," Hazō said. "But I'll want you to swear that you'll keep it a secret after I tell you."
"Fat chance, boy."

Hazō grit his teeth. "You'll see. So, this is about the rift on O'uzu-"

"I knew it!" Fukasaku said. "Skip all the bullshit, I don't want you explaining it all to me a third time."

"Well, Akatsuki finally came by Leaf asking about me, and I can't let them find me and discover runecrafting. I'm going missing from Leaf so that I can keep developing runes to oppose them, to try to stop them from gaining control over the rift and resurrecting Pain."

"Hmph. Leaf seemed like a nice place. That Hiruzen fellow was quite polite. You could learn a thing or two from him."

"He's dead, sir," Hazō said. "Though not for long, if all goes well."

Fukasaku scowled. "Right. Your damn rift. If these other schmucks are taking it seriously, then maybe there's something to it."

"Exactly. Plus, I'm not betraying Leaf, you know. I'm not breaking any of my oaths. This is really in Leaf's best interests. Here, take a look at this," Hazō said, handing over Naruto's carefully written letter instructing Hazō to go missing.

Fukasaku took the letter and frowned, then brandished it back at Hazō.

"Bah! I hate reading your ugly human script," Fukasaku said. "It's fine when there's an elegant poet or a genius ninjutsu designer penning beautiful scrolls, but the rest of the time it's nastier than pondscum in August. Well, I don't care about your damned letters any more than I care about the damned oaths you think I should take. Any polite visitor would speak their demands to my face, instead of foisting off the responsibility to ink and paper."

"Right, sir, I'm sorry," Hazō said, the Iron Nerve keeping any irritation at the Toad Sage's frankly unreasonable outburst off his face. "The letter…"

The letter revealed a critical secret – that Hazō was going missing at Naruto's request. Hazō going missing could damn his family in Leaf, his clan, to Akatsuki's torture, but this secret was bigger. If Akatsuki knew that Naruto had ordered this, they could burn Leaf to the ground.

And Itachi or Kisame might come visit the Toad Sages to ask about Hazō and Noburi, both of whom had been known to interact with the Toad Sages. And the Toad Sages wouldn't take any oaths on Hazō's behalf. The Toad Sages were strong, and they wouldn't be as easy for Itachi to coerce as Naruto had been (and for all Kei's words, Hazō was still irritated with the boy Hokage who apparently had all the willpower of a particularly recalcitrant peanut), but if they leaked word to Akatsuki that Hazō's plan was anything less than a total betrayal of Leaf, it could spell the village's end.

Besides, Fukasaku didn't seem to particularly mind that he'd betrayed Leaf anyway. The Toad Sage liked Leaf, but he'd only had one truly loyal summoner in Jiraiya. He'd get over it.

"The letter wasn't very important," Hazō said, finally. "I'm sorry for wasting your time, sir."

"Don't just say it. Act like it by leaving me alone," Fukasaku said. "Is there something important happening, or are you finally going to take your dogs and get out of here?"

"Uchiha Itachi," Hazō said. "He's a Sharingan user and extremely skilled with genjutsu, to the point that he can outright puppeteer people. He was the one to visit Leaf, and might have suspected that I'd go missing. If so, he might have hit Noburi with a genjutsu to make him think that he wasn't being monitored, then followed after him to find me. When Noburi reverse summons to Gamadai, can you check him over for genjutsu, and if he's clear, tell him to meet us by the bladehorror rift?"

Fukasaku thought about it for a second. "Sure. 'Bladehorror rift,' huh? It's a little annoying to head down to Gamadai, but we can do it once. And if there's one thing me and Ma know forwards and backwards, it's genjutsu. Can't let the Crow Summoner be fooling our clan's summoner when he's on important business. Now, if that's all, get out of here."

o-o-o​

Hazō heard the team coming before he saw Canvass' mottled gray-brown coat break out of the forest's thorny underbrush – mostly through the occasional sound of a branch snapping as the much larger Noburi struggled to follow the dog and the pair of jōnin he'd found himself with.

Canvass hadn't dispelled herself, so she hadn't noticed anything amiss, right? Hazō waved to Mari, Yuno, and Noburi from behind the walls of Kagome's improvised fortress while his Earth Clone went out to ask them for recognition codes. If they were careful, Canvass should have smelled any ground-based pursuer, and what sort of aerial pursuer would have followed Noburi's team for so long? Any Leaf patrol would long since have attacked, and even Akatsuki… well, the Toad Sages apparently hadn't noticed anything wrong with Noburi. So they were safe. There was no one following them.

The earth clone raised its orange flag ("Use orange and blue, so in case the stinker uses a genjutsu on the earth clone, he won't know which one is the good one," Kagome-sensei had said), and Hazō wasted no time leaping over the walls and following the safe path out to meet the team, Kagome, Kei, and the newly-Uplift Tenten close on his heels.

He reached the edge of the trap perimeter and opened his mouth to call out, only to have the breath taken out of him as Mari accelerated in a streak of red to grab him in a hug.

After a moment, he closed his arms around her back and felt that knot of uncertainty in the back of his mind finally relax.

"I'm glad you're safe," she said, breaking the hug and stepping away from him. Hazō looked, but her eyes were dry.

"I should be saying the same thing," Hazō said. "We've just been waiting in seal fortresses in anonymous parts of the wilderness. That's the safest thing ever. You're the one that had to flee the village of Hyuuga and Inuzuka."

And then Mari was behind him, kicking his knee forward to bend him over so she could ruffle his hair.

"Also, dammit Hazō! I was having Yumenori prepare me a hundred different perfumed baths, all sealed up at exactly the perfect temperature, but you called right before she finished and now I don't have any perfumed baths at all!"

"That's what you're worried about?" Hazō said, bending lower to get her hands off his hair and ducking away. "I'm sure we can heat some water with some nice plants in it for you, Mari."

Mari barely quirked her lips and glanced at Noburi and Yuno for an instant. Right. Mari was trying to lighten the mood, but Noburi and Yuno had both had deep social connections in Leaf, futures that they were looking forward to, and that Hazō had now yanked away from them (for very good reasons!). Noburi trusted Hazō, but Yuno… Well, for better or worse, Hazō's strongest connection with her was their shared religion, and he wasn't sure if he should leverage it to win her approval or forgiveness.

"Well," she said, as Noburi and Yuno came into earshot, "Noburi has already given us the run-down, so we can skip the whole 'What the hell, Hazō?' part of this reunion."

"What!?" Noburi exclaimed. "Why would we skip that? It's the best part! What the hell, Hazō?"

"What the hell, Hazō?" Mari agreed.

"What the hell, Hazō?" Hazō heard Kei say from behind him.

"I thought it was pretty reasonable," Kagome-sensei said. "Gotta get away from the Akatsuki stinkers."

"What the hell, Hazō?" Tenten said.

Yuno looked back and forth between everyone, confused.

Noburi took a step to her side and reached around her shoulder with one arm, gesturing at Hazō.

Yuno hesitated. "What the hell, Hazō?" she finally said, slowly.

Mari and Noburi cheered, Tenten smiled, and Hazō sighed.

"A fascinating pack tradition, summoner," Canvass said, looking back and forth between the various parties. "Try to get me something good to track next time, okay? If that's all…" the bloodhound disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"Seriously though, I think it's not as bad as last time," Hazō said. "Materially, we have far more resources."

"True," Mari said. "It'll be pretty much impossible for hunter-nin to find us if we play it smart. Still, we also know the mission you're set on, and I, for one, will be planning for failure. Even if Akatsuki doesn't kill us, it's probably the woods for the rest of our lives.

"But!" she quickly said, realizing how morose her words had turned the mood in an instant, "on the flip side, we're free of all the expectations and bullshit that came from being in the village. I for one am looking forward to never seeing a metal-bearded asshole again except in a context where I can kill him."

"Speaking of which," Hazō said, "I have some ideas of things we can do now that we're freed from the village's rules. But first, let's get some distance away from this place that we haven't exactly kept secret."

o-o-o​

"You want to what!?" Noburi exclaimed.

Hazō heard Tenten making some vaguely-choking-like sound behind him. This wasn't exactly the reaction he'd expected.

"I want to teach everyone shadow clone," Hazō said. "We're missing-nin anyway, and it's the single most powerful technique we have, except maybe the Summoning Technique. It's non-elemental, so everyone can and should learn it."

He glanced at Tenten, who looked vaguely horrified. She didn't say anything, but she was apparently still too loyal of a Leaf ninja to grab a free albeit treasonous power-up. Whatever, she'd come around.

"I want to learn it!" Kagome-sensei said. "Teach me!"

"Absolutely," Hazō said. "In fact, I can teach everyone who wants to now. It'll just take a couple-"

"Hold on," Noburi said, pulling his barrel off his back and holding it out towards Kagome. "Kagome, dip your hand in my barrel for a second."

Kagome blinked, then stepped over and dipped his hand in the barrel.

"You don't have enough chakra," Noburi said instantly. "I think you have less than when Hazō learned the technique, and even that was low enough that Lord Seventh barely felt comfortable teaching him. The technique is supposed to kill you if you don't have enough chakra, so you should really train your reserves before you try."

"It will in fact instantly kill you if you don't have the chakra to form the number of clones you try to make," Hazō said, holding back a grimace as he saw Kagome-sensei's face fall. He should have thought of this – Kagome-sensei was a sealmaster and a trapmaker, not a ninjutsu specialist. "Don't worry, Kagome-sensei. Train your reserves for a few weeks or months, then I'll teach you as soon as Noburi says it's okay."

"Fine," Kagome said.

"Will you be learning it, Yuno?" Hazō asked.

The axemistress considered, then nodded. "I think it would be wise. My chakra reserves are larger than yours. There is no downside to knowing the technique, is there?"

In fact, Snowflake had raised a number of philosophical objections to spreading the technique widely (and increasing the risk that it got spread even wider, if ever the group was separated or captured), but she'd ultimately been overruled. Shadow clones were really too valuable to pass up.

"Not really. And you, Noburi?"

"You know I want to," Noburi said immediately. "But I don't know if it's safe yet with my bloodline, I never got a straight answer out of Kabuto, and I never bothered asking Tsunade. Now I guess I never will."

"If you want to learn it, you need to make the choice," Hazō said. "No more relying on anyone. It's up to you."

Noburi thought about it.

"Not yet," he said finally. "Working with Tsunade taught me a lot about how bloodline research works, and I think I could try to figure out for myself if it's safe or not. I probably won't be able to tell for sure, but I'll at least be able to take a pretty good guess. And like you said, the Shadow Clone Technique is worth it. If gaining the technique means I can skip risking my death at some other point in the future, then it's worth a little risk now, right?"

"Computing which side of the tradeoff is favorable requires more detailed information on probabilities and frequencies of risks," Kei said. "In general principle, I would recommend against attempting the technique unless you are absolutely certain you can cast it safely."

"No such thing as absolute certainty, sis," Noburi said. "Not when working with bodies and bloodlines. But I'll see how close I can get."

Hazō turned to Tenten, raising an eyebrow.

She shook her head.

Hazō sighed. "Just you then, Yuno?"

"I do not know when I will get the time to train the technique," Yuno said, "not when there are other more immediately compelling ninjutsu to train, such as the Strength of the Storm technique you acquired from Orochimaru. Still, it is probably better that I learn the basics sooner than later."

"So be it," Hazō said. "Let's find a nice place to sit, and we can go through the basics."

o-o-o​

"Hey, is that what I think it is?" Noburi asked.

Yuno pivoted to focus her telescope down at where her husband was pointing. After a couple of seconds, she locked onto what he was pointing at.

"That does look like a zigzag streak of red in the wall," she said. Immediately, she started scanning her telescope back and forth. "And look, I think I see a square shape in that pile of stones there. That must be the building foundation that Hazō mentioned."

Noburi followed her gaze, then took a step to snake his hand around her waist. "Good eye! I love how observant you are."

Somehow, despite the fact that they were spending all day out on skywalkers underneath the blazing summer sun, Yuno managed to turn a shade redder.

Yuno turned to Noburi. "Shall we-" she stopped as he leaned in for a kiss. She leaned back for a second, realized there wasn't a single living thing for miles, then relaxed to accept his kiss.

"Shall we go report to Hazō that we found Orochimaru's chakra-enhancing cave?" she said, once Noburi released her.

"Let's," Noburi said. "And let's get some of the ice out of the storage scrolls to beat the desert heat. At least we'll be able to come here after nightfall now."

"I wonder what we'll find in there," Yuno said as they turned to head back to the skybase.

"I don't know, but I'm looking forward to exploring it with you."

---

Many thanks to @Velorien for the initial Tenten scene!

Kei has taken charge of reading Tenten into Team Uplift's handtalk, combat codes, strategies, etc. Tenten already has Flame Aura, but doesn't train or use it much, as she believes it is too dangerous to be worth it for a ranged-weapons user.

Noburi will work with a few summons to set up an information-isolated enclave on the Seventh Path, but the Toads are far less cooperative than the Dogs or Arachnids, so Noburi will probably only be able to maintain one such site. Still, he expects Gamabunta will be willing to spread the message to Akatsuki, if only to piss off Jiraiya's killers.

Hazō preps the four rift runes as described by Orochimaru via Naruto. Setting aside Orochimaru's uncharacteristic generosity in sharing this information with Naruto for basically no reason or benefit, Hazō gets the following difficulty results:

• Rift-opening rune: Hazō thinks this rune is well within his capabilities.
• Rift-unanchoring rune: Hazō thinks he could maybe do this rune.
• Rift-kicking rune: Hazō thinks he could maybe do this rune.
• Rift-attractor rune: Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities.

As a result of studying the bladehorror rift, Hazō is confident that he could develop runes that would work with either the bladehorror or the O'uzu rifts by using the bladehorror rift as a testing site for his research.

This update covered 7 days: 1 day studying the rift, 1 day after reuniting with the team for them to rest off their intense long-distance run, 3 days to run to the mountains in western Wind Country where Orochimaru's magic-chakra-water-cave-place is marked on your map, then 2 days of aerial + telescope searching to find the landmarks and eventually the cave mouth.

XP Award: 28 + 7 (brevity) XP

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Jul 27, 2024 at 1:00 PM .

 

[eaglejarl]

Interlude: Noburi and Tsunade, Sitting in...er, Doing Research Together in a Completely Appropriate Manner​

"Ma'am, how did you do that?"

The greatest medic-nin in the world glanced at her protégé her research partner her colleague Noburi with a frown.

"Do what?"

Noburi gestured at the still-warm corpse on the table. Ten minutes ago this had been Tanaka Osamu, a 19-year-old warehouse worker. He had fallen from a loft in the warehouse and shattered his everything. He had been rushed to Leaf General where Tsunade had done everything that she and her staff could to put his shattered spine, punctured lung, fractured skull, and depressed brain back together, but no one ever imagined that it would be possible. The only meaningful thing she was able to do for him was to ensure that his death was not pointless, that he would contribute to someone else not dying in the future by helping with her and Noburi's research.

"You didn't move your fingers when you opened him up."

She lifted her hands from the body and held them out, palms up. Tiny bursts of medical chakra rose from her fingertips and transformed, becoming hooks and wedges and blades. They roamed around her hand, changing size and shape and angle as she willed.

"Scalpels to part the flesh, retractors to open it," she said as though it were nothing. "Fun party trick. And yes"—she turned her right hand over and made a fist; the chakra migrated around to her knuckles, growing to form finger-length blades—"I have used it to turn an enemy's internals to mulch. Punch, spin the blades around inside them, move on to the next target. Now, if we could come back to the research?"

"Yes, ma'am." He turned back to the corpse but couldn't help but ask, "Did you use that on the Dragons?"

"Nah," she said absently, casually spreading her hands to split Osamu's sternum down the center and open his chest like a flower. "They were too big for the blades. I used medical chakra to create a tunnel down to its organs, then channeled the force of my attack down the tunnel. Punched it from the inside where it's squishier."

Noburi nodded, eyes slightly wide as he suddenly understood the length of the path that led from his current ninja status to the heights of possible achievement. For that matter, was Tsunade even at the peak? Was there a peak, or could ninja simply get stronger indefinitely? If so, how strong must the Third have been? When the team first met him he had seemed like such a friendly old grandfather. His aura when they annoyed him had made clear that he was...more, yet still he must have been holding back so much.

He swallowed and forced himself to focus on the body in front of him as Tsunade submerged it in the pre-prepared bath. He dipped his hand in and found that, as expected, there were still very faint traces of chakra lingering in the corpse. So faint that he probably wouldn't have noticed them two years ago before he achieved mastery over his bloodline.

He cursed himself for using the word 'mastery', even in his own thoughts, immediately after seeing how much farther there was to go as a ninja.

"Well?" Tsunade said. "Hurry up and do your thing."

"Yes, ma'am," Noburi said, beginning to push chakra into the corpse's unbeating heart.

o-o-o-o​

Noburi entered the lab and frowned at the dire rabbit on the table. Tsunade had captured its bladed ears in one leather-gauntleted hand and had the other resting lightly on its neck. The rabbit's head was twitching and its ears were struggling but its body was utterly slack from Tsunade's hand downwards.

"What are we doing today, ma'am?"

"Alternate sensing medium. Cut its side open, stick your finger in, see if you can sense its chakra through the blood."

"My...my bloodline really only works with water, ma'am."

She sniffed. "That's what they taught you as a toddler and a wet-behind-the-ears genin. Doesn't mean it's true. Clans always keep their best secrets back until you're old enough to keep them secret. Now hurry up."

Noburi swallowed and picked up the scalpel.

o-o-o-o​

"The patient in room four is ready for you, ma'am," said Doctor Kurusu, holding out the patient's chart.

Tsunade took the chart and flicked through it, eyes scanning back and forth with trained speed. "Conscious?" she asked, not looking up.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Mild fever, wet cough, aches, tiredness," she muttered. "Damp lung, like we thought. Sounds like we caught it early." She glanced over at Noburi. "You sure about this, kid? I'd think you'd need more of the spirits to be present before you can sense them."

"I'm not sure, ma'am. My thinking with this experiment is that we compare between patients at different stages of illness. I'm sure we'll get someone else in soon who is farther along. It's the season."

"You're not wrong, I suppose. Still, I'm still not completely sold on your ability to kill the spirits with chakra drain but not hurt the patient."

Noburi shrugged. "I can't promise that I can kill the spirits, ma'am, but I can promise that I won't hurt the patient. I've put many patients out without hurting them."

"If there's nothing else, ma'am?" Doctor Kurusu asked, his voice studiously polite. "With your permission, I would like to go back to rounds."

"Yeah, fine." The doctor started to turn away but she caught his arm as she remembered something. "You asked the patient for consent, right?"

"Ma'am?"

Her eyes narrowed. "You asked the patient for consent to be used in medical experiments, right?"

"Ma'am...he's a civilian."

The hand that wasn't holding Doctor Kurusu's arm tightened into a fist, green chakra flickering around it. The hand that was holding his arm must have tightened as well because the doctor went to his knees, crying out in pain as the mountain surged into reality around them, its weight crushing down on everyone within thirty feet. Two nurses staggered and the civilian auxiliary sitting at the intake desk slipped out of her chair.

Tsuande closed her eyes and breathed, forcibly dragging her soul back into its cage the way the owner of a vicious dog pulls it away from its victim.

After a moment she managed to get herself under control again. She lifted Doctor Kurusu back to his feet with punctilious care.

"Doctor Kurusu," she said in a voice that was far too calm. "This is the second time I have had to speak to you about your attitude towards civilian patients. Please take me literally when I say that if there is a third time, I will rip your head off, spit in your neck, and throw your body over the wall of your family's compound. You are free to retire from your position and never practice medicine or use medical chakra again, but if you wish to continue as a medic-nin in Leaf, you will treat all patients, ninja or civilian, with the same degree of respect. If you do not, we are going to have that third time. Am I completely understood?"

The doctor clenched his teeth, visibly restraining himself from saying anything stupid about how powerful and important the Kurusu clan was. Lady Tsunade was the Lady of the Senju clan, grandaughter of the village's founder, Slug Princess, Sannin, the medic who had trained essentially Leaf's entire medical corps, who had saved the lives of multiple Clan Heads and their children, and a former Hokage. She reigned supreme in the medical sphere. In anything related to medicine, this hospital, or its staff, she could do whatever she wanted and not even the current Hokage would so much as wag a finger at her.

"You are understood, ma'am," he said.

"Good. Go get those stress fractures patched up, then get back to your rounds."

o-o-o-o​

"Ma'am?" Noburi had to clear his throat before he could continue. Nervousness had rendered it dry as expired travel jerky.

"Yeah?" Tsunade didn't look up from where she was going through the records of their latest experiment.

"I wanted to ask...um...I wanted to ask if there is anything combat-oriented that you would be willing to teach me? Either based on my bloodline or in general."

She finally looked up. "I thought you wanted to learn how to heal?"

"Medics still get deployed in wartime, ma'am, and I have trouble believing that we'll never see another war, even with this new AMITY thing."

She chewed on that for a moment. "You insisted we set a stop date and I don't want to waste research time teaching you non-medical stuff, but we can look into some weaponization possibilities."

"Thank you, ma'am. Lord Orochimaru said that it was possible he could teach me to manifest chakra scalpels through my Water Whip jutsu?"

She laughed. "'Lord' Orochimaru? Jiraiya would have laughed his ass off if he heard you call Oro that."

Noburi smiled weakly. "With respect ma'am, Jiraiya's not here and Lord Orochimaru is scary. A little bit of politeness seems like a good idea."

"Eh." She shrugged one shoulder. "I suppose. Dunno about the scalpels in particular, but the idea of manifesting medical chakra through your jutsu is interesting." She rubbed her jaw thoughtfully. "That whip thing...two, three yards long, right?"

"Variable ma'am. I've made it up to four yards in combat; I haven't tried to go longer but I might be able to."

"Suppose we had a bunch of operating tables lined up. You think you could lay the whip across multiple patients and use your bloodline on all of them at once? Keep them all sedated or whatever?"

"Absolutely. Splitting my drain is no problem. The Whip would need to be made from actual water though. Can't drain through a construct."

"I wonder...you can push chakra into a person by touch. You think you could use it to disrupt their own internal chakra? Could be a good way to keep them from using jutsu, or maybe even boosting. And maybe you could affect their muscles, make them go limp or cause spasms that have them fall down. Very hard for an opponent to fight when he's in the middle of a seizure."

Noburi's face split into a smile. "That sounds very interesting, ma'am."

"You'd have to be able to do it fast, just on a brief touch instead of needing to grab on. If you manage to restrain someone with your Whip then you don't need fancy medical tricks to kill them."

"Yes, ma'am."

She nodded and pushed the papers aside. "Let's go see what we can do."

---

XP AWARD: n/a This is a retrospective on events that have already happened, so XP has already been awarded for this time.

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Wednesday, Jul 31, 2024 at 7:00 AM .

 

[Velorien]

Future Interlude (AU?): Instances of Three Individuals, Part 2​

None of the events of that fateful day could explain how it had come to this.

There were not one but two women waiting for Hazō at the Asuma Fountain.

Hazō had argued. Hazō had reasoned. Hazō had begged. Hazō had nearly lied, but for the fact that either of them could have his exact schedule for the week with minimal effort. Neither would budge on this day and this hour.

Hazō was not good at first dates. He'd been on exactly two in his life, and one had been a special case (his bond with Akane had been too big for a date to be more than symbolic, and had come long after the confession that actually mattered) and the other, with his girlfriend's best friend within an already-negotiated relationship against a headache-inducing political backdrop, was hardly representative either.

Neither experience had prepared him for a first date with his sister by the transitive property, still-undefined direct family member, serial fiancée–honestly, it might be shorter just to say "Ami" if he wanted to convey the the weirdness of it–or with his sister's identical-but-different other self currently in a fulfilling pentad with said sister, who possessed firm and unyielding killing intent for those who would date Ami and who shared the memories but not the actuality of whatever Snowflake's feelings were, but who had actually also had a crush of her own…

Hazō would have to keep a clear record of his private life for posterity because any post-Uplift historian would be laughed out of the profession if they reconstructed this out of secondary evidence.

Of course, that would all require first surviving the date.

"Hazō," Ami said, waving at him past the crowd. "I hope I didn't keep you waiting."

"Of course you did not," Snowflake said. "You arrived exactly on time, as usual. I, on the other hand, arrived an hour early, thereby mitigating any risk of delay."

"You still have much to learn," Ami agreed.

The two could not have been more sharply contrasted. Ami was wearing the exact vest and trousers prescribed for first dates in Chapter 20 of My Vision, down to the bandolier of antidote vials, the all-purpose kunai, the backup kunai, and the emergency kunai. Even the yellow rhombus badge indicating to the watching secret police that one was on a first date, and thus their partner had not yet been cleared of treasonous intent, was in place below her left shoulder. Between their current location, her well-known general outlook on life, her knowledge of exactly how treasonous he was, and the treasonous plotting they'd already participated in together, it was ironic on at least four different levels, and Hazō was sure he was missing more.

Oh, five. She was wearing blue with orange accents–the personal colours of the Mizukage who, according to her own reports, had removed My Vision from the mandatory Academy curriculum and was in the process of dismantling the rest of Yagura's legacy with the fierce support of the AMI.

The orange, as it happened, nicely matched Snowflake's season-appropriate kimono, a thing of abstract red, orange and yellow patterns evocative of autumn leaves (all very un-Kei colours, Hazō noted in passing). Unusually, Snowflake wore two yellow ribbons, worn symmetrically like hair ties, and Hazō made a note to ask Yuno about this afterwards. (He definitely didn't want to ask Snowflake herself in case the answer was either something embarrassing to her, like "true love", or something embarrassing to him, like "when will this walrus of a man finally notice my feelings?")

Hazō was ever so grateful to Mari for the fashion advice that saved him the headache of trying to match their obvious effort.

"You two both look great," he said. "No, exceptional."

Challenge the first: he had to figure out unique compliments for each of their outfits that did not, Sage forbid, make one sound an iota better than the other. He wasn't that stupid.

Or would Snowflake be displeased if he made them equal? The Kei base model balked at any attempt to draw equivalence between her unworthy self and the divinity that was Ami. But then again, last he heard, Snowflake was furious with Ami, so did that change things? Gah.

This was not a thing anyone had ever had to deal with on a first date before.

"Ami, I love the countless layers making up those clothes, and also how the lines of the visible kunai make my eyes follow your figure and skip over the weapons hidden in your vest. Yagura would hate you with a fiery passion and grudging respect."

Ami preened.

"Snowflake, I love the varied, vibrant colours of your kimono. I think they express how much aliveness and energy you have beneath that collected exterior, and at the same time that translucent shawl gives the whole thing a transient feeling that's appropriate on a more subtle level."

Snowflake blushed and looked away.

Ami looked Hazō up and down.

"You've managed to impress me right back, and I've got to tell you, that takes some doing considering my, shall we say, variety of experience. You've got guts, making that kind of statement to two sisters who aren't exactly on threesome terms right now."

"O-On what?!" Snowflake stuttered, mirroring Hazō's internal reaction.

Dammit, Mari.

"That blue hakama and white jacket combo symbolises foam on the waves," Ami explained to Snowflake, "in other words, vigorous, wet activity, in other words, expecting to bag your date before the night is over. Mist seduction specs sometimes wear it to get the sex kami to back them up when they only have one night to complete a hard seduction mission.

"In Mist, wearing it on the first date is very bold. Wearing it on the first date with two women, who happen to be sisters, one of whom can't even handle talking about sex–no offence, Snowflake–well, that's hardcore. A man shows he's got balls that big, he's either about to find himself getting closely acquainted with the nearest body of water or he's halfway to a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Snowflake was now a deep crimson to match the darkest parts of her kimono. She opened and closed her mouth, but no words came out.

Hazō decided it would be suicidal to try to bluff his way through this.

"Mari picked it for me," he confessed. "I spent ages agonising over what the best outfit would be for this before I gave up and asked her for advice, and by the second hour, she'd more or less taken over the process."

"...huh."

Ami looked Hazō up and down again.

"Well, that's interesting. I mean, on the surface, that's clearly just a message to me: take him if you can, that sort of thing. Permission, maybe even encouragement. But then you have to think about it in a social spec context. Is she saying, take him in your capacity as a seduction expert, which means no getting actually attached? Or is that an overly primitive reading? After all, there's the master-apprentice level, where the medium is part of the message and you can't communicate without a test, and also you could take it as an allusion to the personal relationship between Mari and me, and how it's evolved over time. Then when you add in Snowflake, and Mari's relationship with Snowflake, and what Mari knows I know about her relationship with Snowflake…"

Hazō tuned Ami out in favour of focusing on Mari's other victim.

"I really am sorry about that," he said. "We were overdue for an embarrassing Mari prank."

"N-Not at all," Snowflake said. "But just to be clear, are you expressing a preference for a… a…"

Hazō had honestly not considered it until this moment. This date alone was already well past what he'd expected his romantic future to look like a week ago. He'd had to keep telling himself that this was a unique opportunity: having accidentally talked Ami down from marriage to dating, all he had to do was provide direct proof that they weren't romantically compatible, and then this entire issue could finally be put to be–settled once and for all. (And if it turned out they were romantically compatible, at least he'd be walking into his doom with his eyes open.)

As for Snowflake, he was at a complete loss. Hazō had spent years unsure whether Ami felt any actual attraction for him, and those years were still going even right now, but he'd been confident that Snowflake only saw him as a good friend. Why had she kissed him? It didn't seem like a friendly greeting kiss, and so far this didn't seem like a friends-hanging-out type of date. It was so confusing. Worse, when he thought about it, he couldn't deny that while his relationship with Kei had settled into a comfortably platonic, fraternal form, the Kei base model was attractive in its own right, a lunar counterpart to Akane's sun, and Snowflake in particular–

"Only," Snowflake said, growing tense in the face of his distracted silence, "at this time, I would prefer–I mean not that I am establishing a conclusive dispreference for–which is to say the issue of context–but I by no means wish to imply that I am somehow… Hazō, do you understand what I am trying to say?"

Not remotely.

"I think we should return to this topic at a later date," Hazō said cautiously, "if circumstances are appropriate."

"So you wish for there to be a later date?" Snowflake clarified.

Gah.

Hazō looked to Ami in hopes of rescuing the conversation, which in retrospect was a crazy way of thinking.

"...but she'd be expecting me to play on a level above that…" Ami muttered to herself, counting something off on her fingers.

"I do wish to apologise about… before," Snowflake said, mercifully changing the subject. "I had previously been following a strategy co-designed with Kei, which revolved around extensive gathering of data in order to create an ideal opportunity for confession that maximised the odds of success while minimising the danger of rejection. But… in the moment, it occurred to me that Kei is not actually very good at romance, and I decided to do the exact opposite of what she would do. I… I realise now that the result was excessively forceful and one-sided, and surely so unromantic that you are here only out of pity."

"I… wouldn't say that," Hazō said. "Surprising, certainly. And I could probably have reacted better, or at all, but it's not like I was traumatised. It didn't make me think worse of you is what I'm trying to say."

Snowflake's shoulders sagged slightly in relief.

"I still cannot believe I did that. Kei literally beat her head against the wall, though not for long, since it was late and we did not wish to wake up Shikamaru.

"So…" she continued after a long pause during which Ami could be heard positing a clan-wide conspiracy, "how was it?"

Hazō cast his mind back to the urgent, untameable feel of her tongue in his mouth.

"...Good," he said, feeling himself blush. "It was good."

"I'm glad," she said with just as much awkwardness. "All those hours practising with Tenten finally paid off."

This finally snapped Ami out of her fugue.

"Seriously, Snowflake? You're on your first date, and you're going to talk about how you practised for your first kiss with him with another girl?"

"Oh," Snowflake said. "Oh. That was a… terrible faux pas, wasn't it? I am so sorry."

"Nah, not necessarily," Ami said. "It's a high-risk move, but if you can get the guy thinking about how hot it is for you to be kissing another girl, that's a critical hit. A lot of guys are into that for some reason, and once he's turned on by thoughts of you and kissing–well, you've basically won, haven't you?

"Still, it's not a beginner technique. Especially when things get poly, talking about your other partners can bring in whole layers of complexity. You don't want to pretend they're not there–especially not when we're already one big dodecahedron of incestuousness where everyone is connected to everyone else–but on a first date, try to keep things simple. Trust me."

She grinned alarmingly at Hazō. "Luckily for you, we can settle this one here and now. Hazō, are you turned on or off by the idea of Snowflake kissing another girl?"

But this wasn't Hazō's first rodeo. With Ami, it paid to be ready for questions to which there existed no safe answer.

"I'm flattered Snowflake considered me worth the practice," he said. "Also, don't you mean 'dodecagon'? A dodecahedron is a 3D shape. Believe me, the extra dimension can be decisive."

"Nope," Ami said. "I've learned a lot on my travels. My personal shipping chart currently covers three Paths and two levels of reality. Maybe two and a half. Unfortunately, Singularity made me swear never to show it to anyone for fear of the consequences.

"But enough about cosmic forces that could undo my return and maybe even the entire year that led up to it if I tick them off too badly. Where are you taking us for our date, Gōketsu Hazō?"

-o-​

"There is one immortal tradition for brave couples–or, well, triples–on their first date in Leaf," Hazō began. "One place where the pure of stomach are rewarded while the unprepared receive their just desserts."

Both girls tensed.

"And we will not be going there."

Ami relaxed.

Snowflake muttered something to herself that sounded a lot like "weeks of preparation down the drain".

"The Yabai Café will have to manage without us today," Hazō said, "because we'll be doing something much more fun."

"I knew I could count on you," Ami said. "What have you got in mind?"

"The three of us," Hazō said dramatically, "will be entering a civilian cooking competition!"

Ami beamed. Snowflake, however, gave him a piercingly sanity-checker look.

"What's wrong?" Ami asked." Don't tell me you think Hazō could respect a kunoichi who can't protect the stupendously-expensive kimono that she expects to be wearing for rest of the date–maybe less if things go really well–while not only cooking but being surrounded by a bunch of clumsy civilian cooks wielding all sorts of colourful sauces?"

Oh. Oops.

"If anything," Ami said, "I think I'm the one being unfairly handicapped here. Do you not remember eating my cooking?"

Snowflake smiled sweetly. "I'm glad you recognise that you don't belong in this competition, dear sister. It would be best for you to bow out now and waste no more time. I have already proved my willingness to risk losing face for the sake of the final goal."

"Uh," Hazō said. "Actually, I did think of that issue. There is a special award for the Most Unique Dish."

"Hazō," Ami declared, "I officially love you and want you to have my babies."

"Uh…"

"Biosealing," Ami said to the unvoiced objection. "I know it's next on your list."

"If he was going to conduct that kind of research," Snowflake said, "obviously his focus would be technique hacking."

"It would?" Ami asked innocently.

"Of course," Snowflake said, "for the purposes of extending shadow clone duration to–"

She froze. "Um, I mean… what kind of category is 'Most Unique Dish' anyway? Uniqueness is binary. Either a thing is unique or it is not. I should file a complaint with the Merchant Council over deceptive advertising practices."

"Uniqueness is relative," Ami disagreed. "You are unique as an individual, but you are less unique than, say, Noburi because there's half a dozen other Snowflakes running around at any given time."

"I am not less unique than Noburi," Snowflake said heatedly, "and you are wilfully misusing terminology with malicious intent."

"Excuse me? This is perfectly ordinary pedantic intent, thank you very much."

Hazō just sighed and kept leading them to the competition site.

-o-​

What do you do?

Voting closes on Aug 3, 2024 at 1:00 PM

 

[eaglejarl]

Chapter 672: Dull Days are Best Days​

"Welcome back, Canvass," Hazō said. "How did it go?"

The summoned bloodhound shook her head around the long axis of her body, making her droopy ears flap furiously and flinging bits of blood and dog spittle around.

"Gross!" Noburi shouted as a fleck of spittle struck him where he was prepping his gear for the upcoming assault on the cave system Orochimaru's notes had led them to. "Canvass!"

"Apologies," the dog called. She turned back to Hazō. "Ran into some giant bugs. They were delicious. I have never tracked in a place like this. You called it a 'desert'?"

"Yes," Hazō said. "Although not the deep desert." Turning, he surveyed the arid land around them. The tan-brown soil was working hard to achieve its lifelong goal of absolute desiccation. The land rolling like a sleepy sea, flat fat hills of widened girth and shortened stature, all covered in silver-green scrub and lichens and an occasional sapling stubbornly refusing to accept reality and move someplace decent. (Well, mostly. The team had passed one trio of migrating trees on the way here, and given them a wide berth.)

"The deep desert is pure sand," Hazō continued. "Massive waves of it, dozens of feet high. Life exists only in little spots called oases, wherever there is water."

"Hm. That sounds difficult to track in," Canvass said. "The sand would shift under your paws and it wouldn't hold scent well."

"By all reports it's also extremely difficult and unpleasant to live in."

"Yes, well, remind me not to answer if you try to summon me there."

"Did you guys find anything? Also, how was it working with Mari?"

Canvass glanced over to where the redhead was pouring water on her face and fluffing out her hair to let the heat off her neck.

"Nothing particularly interesting," the hound said. "No especially dangerous plants or animals, although the nighttime stuff might be a different story. As to Mari, she is a good runner and interesting to talk to. She had some fascinating stories about you, actually."

"They were lies. All of them."

"You don't even know what she told me, how can you know they were lies?"

"Because I know Mari and she absolutely would not miss a chance to prank me."

"Hm. A pity. I was quite impressed with the idea that you set up an education program for the younglings of your pack, then opened it to other packs."

"Wait, really? That one is actually true, it's called—"

"Now, now, Summoner. Don't try to take unearned credit. You already said it was all lies, you can't walk it back just because one of the lies was pretty."

"No, really, it's true!"

"Of course it is. Now, as I was saying, the scouting was informative. A surprising number of creatures in the area given the conditions. Mostly bugs and lizards of various kinds, many of them quite delicious. I recommend avoiding the snakes with the red and green markings; they can spit their acid quite a distance."

"Noted. Thank you. Anything else?"

o-o-o-o​

"I can't believe I'm asking this but...are you sure this is all necessary?" Noburi asked. "We're here to study the pool that Orochimaru recommended, right?"

"Yup. And it is at the bottom of that cave complex. The last two times we went into caves, one of us almost died. Thus, yes, we are going to be careful."

"Sure but..." He gestured towards the entrance to the cave.

The team had spent two days mapping out every place that the cave system connected with the surface that they could find. This entrance, the one that Orochimaru had recommended, was the only one large enough for a human to walk through, with the majority being simple slits in the ground a few inches across, sufficient for scorpions or snakes to go in and out.

Heroes of legend, such as the Sannin, would have stormed into the cave with chakra ready, knowing that their battle-honed reflexes were more than sufficient to keep themselves safe. Kagome-sensei was not a hero of legend and felt that what they made up for in power they lacked in brains; Hazō, his student, fervently agreed. Accordingly, the exploration of the cave had been done in a proper Team-Uplift-approved fashion; to wit, the safest and most efficient way possible.

"It feels unfair somehow," Noburi said as he stepped to the cave entrance and raised a misterator seal. "Here, little chakra dumplings! Uncle Noburi is going to drain you right to death." He fired off the cone of heavy mist and spread his bloodline through the resulting haze of water.

Three months of researching alongside Tsunade had enhanced his medical and bloodline skills immensely. He had progressed so much that two days before going missing, he had come to the office to find Tsunade, Hospital Director Kon Ai, and the Hokage waiting in solemn tribunal.

"Gōketsu Noburi," Naruto said gravely. "Lead Doctor Senju has come to me with a most serious statement about your behavior as a medical professional."

Noburi forced himself to keep calm, not summon his Water Whip and brace for attack, and not run for his life before he could be thrown into a killbox. Damn it, Hazō was supposed to be the treason dragon in the family!

Naruto waited for Noburi to say something and looked disappointed when he didn't.

"Specifically," he said at last, "she said that you have demonstrated competence at a level well above those of your peers and she has formally requested your promotion to special jōnin."

"...Really?" Noburi cursed himself for asking, and for the way his voice squeaked. "Are you sure?"

"What, you don't want the promotion?!" Tsunade demanded, crossing her arms.

"Tsunade!" Naruto said before Noburi could reply. "There is a certain decorum to this, you know?"

The Sannin rolled her eyes. "Fine. I just wanted you to give him the paper so we could get on with this."

"Sensei," Kon Ai scolded gently. "Promotion to special jōnin is a huge milestone in anyone's life, and the fact that Noburi has achieved it at such a young age is impressive. He deserves to have a meaningful ceremony."

"Fair enough." Tsunade visibly took a grip on herself. "Gōketsu Noburi. In my rank as Lead Doctor of Leaf General, I have worked closely with you for the past several months on a project of novel research. This project required you to demonstrate a wide array of medical skills, which you did with grace and aplomb. Your skills are significantly above those of your cohort, you have embraced the medical ethos and requirements of Leaf medic-nin and brought honor to the profession. In recognition of these facts, I hereby grant you the title of Senior Doctor within the Leaf medical establishment, along with all the rights and responsibilities of that rank. You have full access to hospital resources and you answer only to myself and Administrator Kon Ai." She paused, then shook her head and, in a move so bizarre that it made Noburi want to check her ears for lupchanzen, she smiled. It was a very, very small smile and it existed mostly on half her face rather than dare to attempt proliferation, yet still it was a smile.

"You've done a hell of a job, kid."

"Thank you, ma'am," Noburi said, dumbfounded. "Thank you, Lead Doctor."

The smile disappeared. "That's enough of that formal twaddle. Come on, kid, we've got experiments to check on." She started to rise, only to stop when Naruto caught her arm.

"Ahem," said the Nine-Tails jinchūriki, Hokage, and youngest of Leaf's three S-rank ninja. "I believe there is a small matter of military promotion as well?" He turned to Noburi and produced a vellum scroll with elegant cherry endcaps. He unrolled it and began to read aloud.

"Whereas, Gōketsu Noburi has demonstrated loyalty to the Leaf and her command.

"Whereas, Gōketsu Noburi has an unstained disciplinary record.

"Whereas, Gōketsu Noburi has used his skills in service of the Leaf.

"Whereas, Gōketsu Noburi has received attestations of skill well above those of his peers and well beyond his current years."

"Therefore, I set my hand to the following document of promotion for the aforementioned Gōketsu Noburi to the rank of special jōnin, seconded to the Medical Corps. Congratulations, Special Jōnin Gōketsu."

He allowed the scroll to roll up and set it on the table before offering a shallow bow of the head, a gesture of respect from the Hokage to a loyal supporter.

"Thank you so much, Lord Hokage. I did not expect this."

"No one expects promotion to special jōnin, or to jōnin," Naruto said. "It's always a surprise. We don't want people getting demanding based on time in grade or whatever."

Noburi nodded. "That makes sense, sir. I can—"

​

"Noburi? You ready?" Hazō asked.

Noburi shook himself out of the pleasant memory and nodded. "Yup. Commencing Operation 'Mist Drain All the Monsters to Death Instead of Going in There Like Real Ninja' now, sir!"

Hazō looked narrow-eyed at him, clearly taking note of the barb. Still, he said nothing. There were too many other things to do, like set up barricades across any side passages and set up skyslicers by the door and then flood the cavern with smoke to drive animals out and through the 'slicers. All in all, it should make the cave exploration at dull as possible. Dull was good; especially as a sealmaster, Hazō thought dull days were the best days. Once the caves were secured the team could have fun and excitement researching the magical pool that had brought them here. Until then, dull was good.

---

XP AWARD: 6 This update covered 2 days.

Brevity XP: 2

"GM had fun" XP: 0

It is now about 6pm.

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Wednesday, Aug 7, 2024 at 7:00 AM .

 

[Paperclipped]

Chapter 672.1: Not So Dull After All​

A couple minutes after tossing the misterators into the crack of the cave, Noburi declared the all clear.

Hazō seemed to shake off whatever contemplation he'd been stuck in and asked, "Did you get enough chakra to compensate for summons?"

Noburi laughed. "Nowhere close. A few little beasts in a tiny room like this wouldn't pay for an academy student's substitution, much less a decent combat summon."

Hazō sighed. "I'd hoped for more. How come the beasts in these 'chakra-dense' areas don't have more chakra to them?"

"They do, I think," Noburi said. "But it's still not that much per beast."

"I think it makes sense," Mari said. "We spend years and years training our reserves to make them as big as possible, but chakra beasts don't do that. If you compared their natural reserves to what a civilian has, they'd probably be enormous, right?"

"That sounds right," Noburi said.

"Well, I guess we'll be a bit lower on chakra today," Hazō said. "Shall we?"

"Summoning Technique: Panashe!"

"Summoning Technique: Candoru!"

"Shadow Clone Technique!"

"Shadow Clone Technique!"

Puffs of smoke surrounded the team as the bulk of the cave-expedition's fighting force appeared from the aether. Most notable were the clones of Yuno, who were looking around in momentary confusion (Mari's clones were clearly much more used to immediately grabbing seals and moving into a formation).

Ah, Yuno had shadow clones now. Not only did that mean that his wife was safer, it meant that he had more pleasant faces to gaze at.

Oh no. What would Yuno think about looking at another woman that she knew he was attracted to, even if that other woman was a clone of herself? Could he afford to show affection to her clones if he wanted to stay in one piece? Could he afford to show affection to Yuno, when the Yuno clones were clearly each carrying their own little Satsuko-clones?

What if her clones came to him for physical affection (which they expected, being cognitively identical to Yuno herself!) and he shunned them? She'd receive the memories of being ignored by him and who knew if that would set her off.

Noburi quickly looked away from the small crowd of Yunos. Some questions didn't need to be answered.

Panashe was here for general utility and scouting, Candoru was here so that Hazō could feel like he was contributing, and the shadow clones of the team's two jōnin were here to provide infinitely more combat power than the cave could handle, on the off chance anything survived Noburi's mist drain and attacked.

Noburi quickly did his rounds, rebalancing chakra within the team so that everyone was at around half their reserves and he felt like he was pretty close to full.

The mist from the misterator had long since settled out of the air, so he popped another one and checked his sense of chakra through the mist again to confirm that there was nothing living with chakra within twenty meters of the cave's mouth. His senses reached farther than he could drain, so he could sense chakra deeper within the cave that he couldn't quite grasp and pull on, but he could tell it was there. Once they got in there, he'd need to call out each and every one of the beasts that he could sense but couldn't drain to make sure that the jōnin knew about the potential threats long before they made themselves into actual threats. Of course, those things would ideally be dead long before they even knew that they needed to fight back.

"Alright, we're good now," Noburi said. "Going in. I'll meet you all, my fellow meat-people, at the pool."

With that, he wrapped his hand around his barrel so it wouldn't knock against the narrow walls of the cave's opening, and ducked his way inside.

Two minutes later, after a frankly inordinate amount of chastising about letting the shadow clones and summons go first, he actually went in for real.

"I don't know why Noburi even has to be in here physically," he heard Yuno saying. To whom she was talking, he didn't know. Maybe Mari, or one of the summons. Maybe another one of the Yunos?

Noburi pulled out his Daybright Lantern seal (attached to the base of a small metal cup so that it only shined light in one direction) and pointed it at where he remembered sensing chakra sources in the room. The light refracted through the thin mist, but not enough to keep the team from seeing the six torso-sized lizards piled up dead at a point where the tunnel turned.

He redirected the light to point at a pair of dead snakes in a crack in the wall – four feet long and striped in bright red and orange – then to a nest of forearm-sized scorpions whose corpses were somehow still stuck to the ceiling.

"That's why," he heard a Mari say. "Guess you haven't seen Noburi in action before? Trust me, we're going to have a very easy time of things here."

"I don't believe you," Candoru said. "Hazō only summons me to die in dramatic ways, and I'm pretty sure that there's something in here that's going to fuck me up in ways that even this guy can't prevent."

"Perhaps the problem is your insufficient combat skill," Yuno said. "You should request Hazō summon you more often so that you get more experience fighting chakra beasts."

"What she said," Panashe said. "Though, I guess this explains why we're rolling through the Dogs we find so easily, if you're all too lazy to even consider training against unconventional enemies."

"Listen here you scaley bitch," Candorui said, "I'm going to take your tongue and-"

"Hey!" Noburi said. "You're on a mission right now! Focus! We're on a timer since Yuno's clones don't last that long yet. Can I get more mist moving forward?"

"And more light," Mari said. "These things are well camouflaged, and we didn't spot those beasts without movement. That's unacceptable."

Moments later, the cave was far better lit and a pair of Yunos were advancing with misterators spitting their thin haze ahead of them.

Their advance was slow compared to a ninja run, and insanely fast by the standards of any chakra beast hunter. At one point, one of the lead Yunos dropped her misterators to raise her axe to intercept a pouncing spider/cat thing, only for it to lose consciousness mid-pounce and get itself chopped in half in a spray of blood.

The flipside of the beasts having barely any chakra in them meant that Noburi could drain them dry in an eyeblink. He could sense dozens of beasts within the cave as it opened up, far more than he would have expected to find (maybe there was something to be said for Hazō's 'chakra-dense locations'), but they didn't pose any threat to the team. As soon as they got within a couple dozen meters, Noburi pulled the chakra out of them and out they went. He didn't hold back either. Each pull had a little twist at the end as he pulled out the last dregs of life-sustaining chakra from within them, leaving them dead where they lay.

He wondered if he was impressing Yuno. From the front of the formation, she could see the occasional beast decide to attack the intruders, only to collapse dead the instant they entered Noburi's range.

Working with Tsunade really had taught him so much about sensing and draining with his bloodline. Even through the thin mist, he could feel a group of eleven beasts with a bit more chakra than they'd encountered so far, as well as some sort of Fire Element ability. He pointed, Mari threw a misterator, and he sensed the creatures get up and run away deeper into the cave. Whatever. If they didn't stick around so he could kill them later, they'd run into the skyslicers on their way out and kill themselves.

A Yuno popped. Her seals, embedded in Kagome's signature wooden disks, clattered to the stone. One of the Yunos opened her mouth to say something, but if she (or any of her fellows) got anything out, it was muffled by the repeated staccato popping of the rest of the Yunos.

"Huh," Noburi said, stopping his advance. "Yuno said she could sustain clones for about ten minutes, right? I didn't think it had been that long."

"It hasn't, I'm pretty sure," Mari said. "Maybe she messed up casting the technique. She's definitely had way less practice with it than I have."

Mari's head snapped to the side at another staccato thumping noise.

"Sorry," Noburi said. "Bat swarm was flying this way to investigate. Dead now. You were saying?"

"Well, we knew Yuno's clones weren't going to last that long anyway. Let's continue."

Mari redistributed her clones, moving a couple to the front of the formation while a couple stayed by Noburi's side as insurance against some incredibly improbable events.

They took three steps forward before a Mari popped.

"Huh," the other Mari in the front of the formation said. "I don't know-"

And she, along with the rest of the Maris, disappeared in their own clouds of smoke.

Noburi leaned back into a combat stance and saw the two summons ahead of him doing the same. Something was wrong.

He looked left and right, but saw nothing. The cave was filled with mist, so he should have been able to sense if there was anything nearby, but he felt nothing.

"What was that!?" Candoru said. "She wasn't supposed to disappear, right?"

"No, she wasn't," Noburi said. "We've hit unexpected problems. Time to retreat and regroup; see what Mari and Yuno felt when their clones popped. Let's back it up."

"Sounds good," Candoru said, and Panashe quickly signaled orders received.

They started backtracking through the cave and made it maybe thirty meters to a more open region of the cave when Candoru spoke.

"Hey, I think I feel-"

The Dog puffed into nonexistence. Simultaneously, Noburi heard a thunk of stone hitting stone in a cavern nook to the side.

"Water Element: Water Whip!" Noburi said.

"Well, he spoke the Pantokrator's will into existence, didn't he?" Panashe asked. "He did end up dying in some new way."

"Quiet," Noburi said. "We don't know what's causing that, and we need to be cautious. I heard a sound over that way, Panashe, go and take a look." As he spoke, he gestured with the whip to the side nook where the noise had come from.

"I'll note that you tall monkeys are still the ones with the good vision," Panashe said as she softly stepped in that direction.

Noburi swore. He needed intel, and that nook was closed off. There shouldn't be anything living in there. He followed after Panashe.

"Watch out," he heard Panashe say as he wallwalked up the side of the cave to look into the nook. "There's something in here that survived your jutsu."

Noburi raised his Daybright Lantern light to shine it into the nook.

Within, a pair of creatures floated in the air. They looked like river otters, if river otters were twice as big and covered in short gray fur and hovered two feet above the ground. Their eyes snapped towards Noburi as he shined the light on them. The pair had been gathered around… a gray stone statue of another otter, lying on the floor of this nook?

Noburi backed away, sticking to the walls as he looked at the creatures, but they didn't attack. They didn't look aggressive at all, in fact. They had no claws or fangs or anything of the sort that would mark a chakra beast as threatening.

What had caused that thunk of stone against stone? And why couldn't his bloodline sense these weird otter-like creatures?

Noburi took the risk and closed his eyes, focusing entirely on his sense of chakra in the thin mist that still filled the cavern. His senses were coarse, but that didn't mean that, with focus, he couldn't pick out details.

Spoiler: rolls

Noburi (Vampiric Dew): 50 + 6 = 56

At first he still felt nothing, so he narrowed his attention down to the otters themselves, barely a couple meters away from him.

…he felt it. Strange, negative spaces in the soft static that normally filled his chakra sense when there was nothing there. He struggled to perceive it, adapting his sense to see a creature that could only be noticed by noticing where he felt nothing at all.

Those otters were parts of a larger something. He could feel them, several of them, looming over him. They were tentacular, like some sort of octopus, and he could feel those tentacles moving. The otters were somewhere near the heart of the creature, but he didn't know if they were the heart of the creature.

Those tentacles were reaching towards him. He backed away.

No, the tentacles were already attached to him. Or rather, his barrel. He could feel three, no, four of the negative spaces stretching from his barrel to the shadow cast by the otters.

Those spaces weren't fully negative. There was chakra there. His chakra, being pulled out of the barrel and along the tentacles of these creatures.

They were draining him. They'd drained the shadow clones into nonexistence, and soon they'd do to him exactly what he'd done to the beasts in the cave. He had more chakra than them, but in the end that wouldn't matter. He'd go unconscious, then his life would be extinguished like a candle going out.

"Panashe, run!" Noburi said as he turned to sprint his way out of the cave.

---

Noburi has given you the action report of the above, corroborated by Panashe.

Mari and Yuno both collapsed a few minutes after the cave exploration team went in, Yuno first, then Mari. Hazō and Kei initially suspected psychic attacks, but Noburi was able to confirm that they had somehow been put under extreme chakra drain and woke them up with a small chakra transfusion. They both report noticing their reserves being precipitously low moments before passing out, so the drain on them must have been fairly fast. Noburi reports that the drain on his barrel felt fairly slow.

Noburi notes that while their coils might have been temporarily damaged, it was thankfully probably impossible for the Primes to die as Prime going unconscious pops the clones that were the conduit by which the weird tentacle-otter-chakra-draining things were draining Prime.

Candoru refuses Hazō's attempt at resummoning. When Hazō travels to the Seventh Path, Candoru says that he felt "the worst thing ever, like having your soul yanked out of your body by cold, wet, slimy paws." He doesn't want to go back into this particular cave.

Voting remains open.

 

[Velorien]

Chapter 673: Choosing Death​

"...and if you think having your skeleton rip itself out of your body and choke you to death is as bad as it gets, that's nothing compared to the risk of rupturing the dimensional insulation layer and having the Leviathans That Punish Cognition come and–"

"Thank you, Kagome," Kei interrupted wearily. She'd started out standing by the fire, reaching over periodically to warm her hands against the chilly desert night. By this point in the tirade, she'd sunk to the ground, trying to maintain proper, upright cross-legged posture even as the life visibly drained out of her.

The entire team, sans Mari and Yuno (still laid up in their bedrolls, at this point needing rest more than treatment), was gathered around the fire. Hazō sat opposite Kei and Snowflake as they identically tried not to sag. Tenten, next to him, had never been exposed to a proper Kagome-sensei rant before, and was drinking in every word with obvious fascination. Noburi, on Hazō's other side, seemed to have zoned out. Hazō himself was alternatingly nodding to show understanding, cringing in humiliation, and taking notes about very real dangers every sealmaster should know to watch out for. As Kagome-sensei had pointed out repeatedly, Hazō's rapid growth in skill was unmatched by a parallel growth in experience, which meant he was still dangerously ignorant in countless domains. He'd never even heard of the Leviathans That Punish Cognition, much less learned whatever lucky dances might stay their wrath.

"No problem, Kei," Kagome-sensei said briskly. "Now, where was I? Right, the sheer pants-on-head craziness of trying to–"

Kei's hand twitched in her lap. "What my expression of gratitude was intended to convey is that I believe you have covered all the essential points, and since the rest of us are already quite au fait with the perils of sealcrafting and how they apply to this situation–"

Tenten raised her hand.

"I am quite certain that Kagome will be delighted to explain the myriad perils of sealing and the absolute need for egregious safety measures, at length, on any occasion of your choosing, which I would emphatically prefer not to be now."

Kagome-sensei nodded enthusiastically. Tenten smiled at him and lowered her hand.

"–and as such, it would be best to save the rest of the ran- lecture for later. Tonight, perhaps, when Hazō has finished with his daily tasks and is preparing to sleep."

"If you insist," Kagome-sensei grumbled. "At least it'll give me some time to put my thoughts in order. I always feel like I run out of stuff to say too fast at times like these."

Hazō would get Kei for this. He wasn't sure how yet, nor how to survive the inevitable re-retribution from at least three vengeful girls (and possibly Noburi, joining in just for the hell of it, and possibly Mari, once she saw how much fun everyone but Hazō was having), but the founder of Uplift firmly believed that where there was a will, there was a way.

"To briefly recapitulate the last half hour, then," Kei said, "professional opinion discourages runic infusion in an unsecure location while surrounded by a variety of unknown chakra beasts and, to use a particularly choice expression from sixteen minutes ago, 'a dodgy stew of blatant eldritch weirdness that could be coming to a boil under our very feet right now'."

"What if we infused it outside the cave?" Hazō proposed. "There has to be a reasonable radius beyond which we think the esoteric effects of the cave won't reach."

"And then very slowly manually drag it around aforementioned unsecure area?" Kei asked.

"Right."

"I'm uncertain whether logistical concerns should be foremost in our minds here," Snowflake said. "Obviously, there will be some degree of risk in any attempt to bait the chakravores, as Hazō has elegantly dubbed them. We do not know whether they have any additional powers they have yet to display, nor what other chakra beasts may be drawn into the process. There is always the risk of Noodle ghouls."

"What do Noodle ghouls have to do with it?" Hazō asked. "I'm specifically proposing to keep the chakravores alive to study, not massacre them."

Tenten gave them a questioning look.

"We got briefed on them before the big mission that started our whole adventure," Hazō explained. "They can smell corpses from a long way off. After any battle in eastern Noodle, you have to seal away or burn the bodies, otherwise you'll be neck-deep in ghouls before you know it. But I'm not sure why that's relevant."

"Ooh, I know this one!" Yuno's voice came from a bedroll, sounding remarkably chipper for someone who hadn't even been conscious last time Noburi checked. "I fought some back when I was a missing-nin. Um, last time, I mean. There's this parasite called a possessor, and what it does is, it sucks your brain out through your ears, and then it lays an egg in your skull. Then the egg hatches into a new parasite, and the new parasite moves the body around like it's driving a cart, and goes off to suck other people's brains out so it can lay its eggs in them."

Kagome-sensei, who'd sat down next to Hazō, went completely stiff.

"But the part Snowflake's talking about," Yuno went on, "is how most of the time, that doesn't happen, because the ghouls find the body while the parasite's still growing, and they think it's dead-dead, so they eat it. That way, the possessor doesn't get to breed. The legends say that the ninja of hundreds of years ago didn't know that, so they hunted the ghouls nearly to extinction, and… you can imagine what happened."

Come to think of it, wasn't there some legend in Leaf about how the Uchiha and their fire ninjutsu once saved the Fire Country from a zombie apocalypse? Hazō had always assumed it was clan propaganda, like the stories about Inuzuka being able to turn into giant wolf monsters with their dog's assistance.

"So in other words," Yuno said, "for all we know, there are other chakra beasts lurking in the chakravore's shadow, waiting to eat the bodies once they've been chakra-drained, and gathering all the chakravores in one place means those chakra beasts will follow. Or the chakravores could be the only thing stopping something even scarier from coming out of the depths. Or… you get the idea. Yuki from my classes says that 'don't make things worse' is one of the iron rules of a true extermination specialist."

There was a pause.

"I wonder if I'll have to kill her."

"I see," Kei said, wisely ignoring the heck out of that comment. "From that perspective, Snowflake's objection makes perfect sense. Of course, weaponising indirect chakra drain would be quite a triumph considering the nature of our opposition, and were we to sensibly prioritise our personal safety over the lure of weapons research, we would not have joined Hazō on this mission in the first place. Thus, before we discuss details of implementation, we must settle the issue of risk versus reward. Noburi, in your judgement as our resident medic, how likely are we to be able to extract useful technology from these chakra beasts should we successfully isolate them for study?"

Noburi zoned back in. "Sorry?"

"Noburi, in your judgement as our resident medic, how likely are we to be able to extract useful technology from these chakra beasts should we successfully isolate them for study?"

Noburi frowned. "Well, as Leaf's best and brightest young–"

He cut off.

Nobody said anything.

"In a word," Noburi said, subdued, "not bloody likely. I haven't done animal research since before we got adopted into Leaf, and back then, I only had basic training, so I was mostly just messing around. I'm guessing none of Hazō's diagnostic seals are meant for scanning living creatures in detail from a safe distance, so it'd be down to my chakra sense and anything I can get from a dissection–and I don't even know if we'd get anything from a dissection, seeing as those things are like half-ghost or something. And even if I did…"

He sighed, leaning back against his barrel. "Even ignoring how all my powers are water-based and theirs aren't, even if their drain is close enough to mine that I can steal their tricks somehow, I can't exactly do bloodline surgery on myself, y'know? Anybody who could is… not available. Whereas, in Team Uplift, nobody knows biosealing, and thank the Sage for that, and Hazō's still on baby's first technique modification, so I just don't see how we can get decent data and have a chance in hell of understanding what it means and do something useful with the result.

"Me and Yuno have talked about it before," Noburi said. "How it would be great if she could hunt down cool chakra beasts for me, and I'd use my miraculous medical ninjutsu to graft their powers onto myself, and hopefully avoid turning into Orochimaru somehow, and then I'd become the ultimate uber-ninja instead of being Leaf's barrel boy superweapon. But it's just a fantasy. I'm not the next Orochimaru. I am–I was going to be–the next Tsunade. You study humans because humans are the ones that need saving. Even he got that, once upon a time."

"Any other ideas?" Kei asked the group. "While my instinct is naturally to conduct a measured risk assessment and then flee screaming in terror from any suggestion that we attempt to contain these jōnin-devouring beasts over an extended duration, we have sacrificed everything to be here, and the racing hourglass forbids us to reject too many opportunities."

"There's still a chance," Hazō said. "Surely. All right, maybe we don't have biosealing or technique hacking or relevant medical theory. But we have runes. There's got to be at least a chance that we'll learn something that I can turn into an Itachi-killing chakra drain rune."

"I'm not a runemaster," Noburi said. "But I've got a vague idea by now of what a rune does, if not how. Supposing I tell you, 'the chakravore'–cool name, by the way–'drains through shadow clones by using its gobbledygook organ to turn shadow clone chakra into magical abracadabra chakra that's all connected so when you tug on one end, it pulls the other'. Have you got the runemaster skills to transform that gobbledygook organ into chakra channels running through a bunch of rock that will then turn somebody's shadow clone chakra into magical abracadabra chakra, and you with zero medical training to tell a gobbledygook organ from your left elbow?"

"I mean," Hazō said, "knowing that you have to turn shadow clone chakra into a different kind of chakra would at least give me a direction to look in."

"Would that level of new insight accelerate your hypothetical Itachi-killer research," Kei asked, "by a sufficient margin to cause you to prioritise it over any of the other possibilities you are exploring? And is that margin worth the as-yet-uncalculated but tangible risk of a TPK?"

Hazō gave it serious thought. He was good. Very good. But his recent experience with prep days showed that runes fell into three broad categories. One he could manage even without existing insights, just by virtue of inspiration followed by sheer brilliance. One was simply beyond him, whether as a limitation of runecrafting itself or of his current skills, there was no way to know. Assuming the Itachi-killer wasn't already in the middle or lower category, was the amount of information Noburi thought he could provide enough to push it down from the upper?

"Fine," Hazō said, allowing his frustration full rein as he switched mental tracks. "We kill them. We kill every last one. If we can't use them, then at the very least we won't let them hurt our family ever again."

Hazō didn't know what his face looked like at that moment, but he could guess from the way Snowflake flinched away.

-o-​

You have received 4 - 2 (Loquacity) = 2 XP.

-o-​

With the reluctant approval of Experimental Overseer Noburi and Assistant Experimental Overseer Kei, Hazō sent in earth clones to conduct some quick experiments.

• Earth clones are drained into oblivion very quickly
• Real materials created by ninjutsu (MEW, ES) are either undrainable or of no interest to the chakravores
• Construct MEW is drained and collapses; Noburi thinks that draining the Earth chakra does something to the chakravores, but his senses aren't fine enough to tell what
• Experimental Overseer Noburi and Assistant Experimental Overseer Kei reluctantly gave permission for Hazō to use shadow clones of earth clones under extensive safety measures (full on chakra, mouthful of concentrated chakra water which he'll hopefully swallow immediately if he collapses, Noburi touching an open cut for maximum VD effectiveness); both clones were drained and destroyed immediately, with no effect on Hazō

-o-​

Kagome is of the opinion that the chakravores could well be gaki; he certainly favours it over the Otter Scroll theory. He notes, however, that gaki are incredibly hard to kill unless you are a damnbeast, since they are not chakra beasts but hunger made flesh. (Further questions regarding damnbeasts, and especially where to obtain one on short notice, were met with screaming.)

-o-​

Setting aside your current level of access to contract-buying resources, Kagome suspects he lacks the kind of reputational cachet with the Arachnids that would encourage them to form contracts to be tortured to death for his sake. Among other things, he has yet to prove himself to them, either in combat or by doing anything about the Great Seal (the reason he was made summoner at all).

-o-​

Voting is closed.

 

[eaglejarl]

Chapter 674: The 'Pool'​

"Cool mission statement, bro," Noburi said. "Very dramatic. How do we do it?"

"Ideally, we deal with that group of otters first. The double thunk plus the statue you discovered sounds like there was a third otter that drained Candoru and got turned to stone from the nature chakra."

"Which I guess answers the question of whether or not summons' chakra envelopes are made of nature chakra," Noburi said, nodding.

"Right. So, we get Candoru back, maybe a couple other summons too, and we send them in ahead. The otters will drain them and get stoned, problem solved."

Kei frowned. "Hazō, have you considered what it might have felt like?"

"What?"

"Under the paradigm that you are modeling, Candoru had all of his chakra ripped out of him in an instant, even including that which is necessary to sustain life—or, on this Path, embodiment. Having Noburi drain me is an uncomfortable experience even when done under controlled circumstances by someone whom I trust. It must have been extremely unpleasant for Candoru. He may not wish to go through it again."

"Huh. Okay, let's find out. If not then I can get one of my other dogs for the job." He bloodied his finger and touched the ground. "Summoning Technique: Candoru!"

His chakra drained away, reaching off in a direction that was neither up nor down, left nor right, forward nor back. It spun, faster and faster, spreading out, until the aetheric tunnel formed between the Human Path and the Seventh Path. Ordinarily it would snap into place instantly and the summon would pour themself down it in answer to his call. This time, the tunnel quested about like a hound seeking a trail. When it finally locked on there was resistance; the tunnel shuddered and shook, struggling to sustain itself even as Hazō poured extra chakra in.

Summoning was normally instantaneous, but it was long seconds before Candoru finally puffed into existence, glaring at Hazō.

"No fucking way!" the dog snapped. "I am not going back in there! I don't give a shit what the Alpha told you, I'm not doing it!"

"Candoru, it's fine," Hazō said. "Nothing in there can hurt you. Heck, you even killed one of them in the process of getting popped—turns out, you guys are made of nature chakra on this Path and when the otter drained you it got turned to stone."

"Yeah, and it hurt like a motherfucker! I thought my entire brain was going to explode. I could feel my body unravelling around me, my soul getting yanked out of me and I've been puking ever since I got home. I almost blew off your stupid summons this time but I figured I wanted the chance to tell you what a complete asshole coward you are!"

"...Excuse me?"

"You heard me! You're a fucking asshole and a coward! Sending me on ahead while you cower in the back like a coward. Real summoners fight beside their dogs, they don't hang back and let us take all the risks! That's what Kakashi's old summon, Pakkun, said."

Hazō digested that. It was true that he had always regarded his combat dogs as disposable trap-clearing assets but, in fairness, they couldn't actually be hurt or killed here. As to Candoru...

"Candoru, the reason I've always sent you on ahead is because that's what the Alpha told me to do."

"No, he told you to start off by sending me on ahead until I figured out that I couldn't always win on my own, then to fight beside me. I figured that out after the mine where those worms kept dropping on me and eating through me, so why aren't you fighting beside me?"

"Oh." Rats. There went Hazō's disposable trap detector.

Eh, he could always make a contract with some other dog.

"Fair enough," Hazō said instead of sharing his thoughts. "Anyway, you said you don't want to go back into the cave so I'll let you go. Is there anything that would help with your recovery? If I've got it in my seals then I can pop back with you and drop it off."

Candoru eyed him suspiciously for several seconds. "That's it?"

"What?"

"I call you a coward and say I'm not going to follow your orders and you're just going to take it?"

"I mean...yes? I know I'm not a coward so I'm not bothered if you use that as a way to lash out. As to disobeying my orders...well, I suppose that the Alpha did give me authority over you for purposes of training, but you said that you learned the lesson already. From now on we're partners and I'm not going to be ordering you to do something you don't want to."

"Huh." Candoru seemed flummoxed. "That's decent of you."

"Thank you. So, anything I could supply that would be useful?"

"...I always hear you talking about that willowbark tea stuff. Is it any good?"

"It helps with headaches, yes. Fair warning, it's very bitter and a little sour. What you described sounds maybe like the sick feeling of chakra exhaustion? If so, I've got a tisane of honey and lemon that will go a long way towards settling your stomach, and a sock filled with hot sand that you can put over your neck to help with the muscle aches."

"Oh. Well, that actually sounds...kinda nice."

"Cool, give me a lift back and we can set you up." He nodded to the rest of the family; they nodded back so he allowed the annoyed white dog to carry him back to the Seventh Path.

Minutes later he was back.

"Okay," he said. "Looks like we need a new strategy. Kei, Noburi, Kagome-sensei—what do you think about sending some of your summons ahead of us? Are they likely to react the same way as Candoru did and feel like we should be alongside instead of behind?"

"Panashe is accustomed to serving as a forward scout," Kei said. "The rest of my tessera...yes, I suspect they would be irked by being sent in as sacrificial sardines. When I first ascended to the mantle it might have been different, as they knew that I was young and largely unblooded. Now that I have served as the Summoner for several years and demonstrated my competence on the battlefield they would most likely be less sanguine about the idea. Also, most of them would not fit."

Kagome-sensei shuffled his feet. "I, uh, haven't really made many contracts," he admitted. "I don't really have the kind of reputation with them that would make them want to fight for me."

"The toads aren't going to be happy about the idea either," Noburi said.

"Right. No clones, no summons," Hazō said. "Fine, we do it the hard way." He started riffling through his storage seals, eventually finding the right one and unsealing a chunk of runic substrate that had already been twisted into a blank for the Capacitor rune. "I'll infuse this near the mouth of the cave, see if we can bait the otters to it with some of Minato's chakra-gathering seals. If they like those then they should love this thing; it's way stronger. Hopefully we can draw the otters to the rune with a chain of those things, then we bypass them. We move slowly, we spray misterators in front of us and Noburi drains anything he can sense. If we start getting hit with chakra drain then we back up and throw explosives." He paused, frowning. "I think. Does anyone know whether the cave is solid enough to sustain an explosive tag?"

o-o-o-o​

"It's beautiful," Noburi said quietly. Yuno stood next to him, their arms around each other's waists and her head tipped against his as they looked out across the grotto.

Orochimaru's dossier had described a 'pool', which any normal person would imagine as something small, perhaps two or three yards across. The water that filled the grotto at the bottom of the cave system was more of a pond or even a small lake—at least eighty or ninety feet wide, perhaps more. It wasn't regularly shaped; the walls wiggled in and out like worms having seizures, creating many side caverns and leaving it unclear what the exact extent of the water might be. There were narrow shelves of rock here and there around the perimeter of the lake, including where the tunnel Team Uplift had arrived through debouched into the grotto. The walls and ceiling were clothed in drapes of moss while here and there the long palmate leaves or reed-like stalks of plants rose from a ledge, or even from under the surface of the glass-smooth waters.

The walls and ceiling were thickly dotted with crystals, some of them the size of a thumb and some of them massive conglomerates as large as a person that dangled like expensive chandeliers. The crystals glowed in a haze of shifting colors, each individual crystal pulsing slowly, its color cycling from hue to hue around the rainbow. The crystals covered the walls of the cavern all the way to the distant (?) floor, their light causing the water to glow and sparkle. The waters were warm, bath temperature, and where they intersected with the cold September air one could see traces of vapor rising and twisting lazily. Taken together, the scene was straight from a fairy story.

"Well, that's definitely going to kill us," Kagome-sensei said calmly.

---

XP AWARD: 5

Brevity XP: -2 (500+ words)

"GM had fun" XP: 0 No strong feelings.

It is now about 6pm. This update plus the one before for which XP was not yet awarded covered roughly a day.

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Wednesday, Aug 13, 2024 at 7:00 AM .

 

[Velorien]

Future Interlude (AU?): Instances of Three Individuals, Part 3​

"Just to check," Snowflake asked, "but is this cooking competition perchance being hosted by visitors from Hidden Rock, or perhaps Hidden Rain?"

"Hot Springs, actually," Hazō said. "Why?"

"Because storing ingredients outdoors in this heat seems like an excellent recipe for spoilage and mass food poisoning," Snowflake said. "It would be an original vector of attack, targeting the civilian population while evading standard anti-terrorism countermeasures like the Byakugan and maintaining plausible deniability."

"Actually," Hazō said, "that's part of the point. The competition is there to drum up publicity for Okamura Foods opening its first ever Leaf branch, to and show off how they use storage scrolls to make sure their food's still fresh after weeks on the road."

"Ooh," Ami perked up (not that she had been anything less than alarmingly perky since the start of the date). "That's Okamura Seiji's company. The Mori use him as a case study. Apparently, he used to be an ordinary travelling salesman, but then he somehow got word of the Cold Stone Killers incident days before anyone else, and it changed his life. He sold off all his goods and took out a bunch of loans in Rice, and then bought out all his rivals–them being bankrupt after they arrived in Hot Springs with luxuries nobody was there to buy and perishables that had all perished while they were stuck waiting for the borders to reopen. Then he snapped up property left, right, and centre while the Hot Springs economy was in freefall, managed to get in good with the Mist occupation, and by the time the dust had settled and business was booming again, he was the second most important person in the country after the Lord of the Burning Waters. Some would even say first, considering how much influence Hidden Hot Springs has lost now that AMITY's made DMZs obsolete."

"You're very well-informed, My Lady," the civilian at the sign-up desk told her. "Unfortunately, this is a cooking competition for the common people. No ninja or ninja magic allowed."

"Why would you think we were ninja?" Hazō asked. "It's not like we're wearing forehead protectors or clan colours or anything."

Actually, that reminded him: he glanced down to make sure his seal pouch was still there. One did not go on a date with Mori Ami without being prepared for anything short of the apocalypse (and also for the apocalypse, because when it came, odds were good Ami would be the one to cause it).

"I have a certificate signed by the Seventh Hokage himself confirming that I am a civilian of the Fire Country," Snowflake added smugly. "Would you like to see it?"

The man at the desk slowly looked between Hazō, Snowflake, and Ami, his gaze lingering briefly on the latter (who really did look very fetching in her My Vision dating outfit). He glanced behind him, at the distant figures of the judges, but they were turned away, talking among themselves.

"My humblest apologies, My Lady," he said, bowing his head contritely. "It seems I was mistaken. Please feel free to head into the competition area, honourable commoners just like myself."

It was good to know that Hazō still had it despite not investing in Deceit since he was a genin.

"Ugh," Snowflake muttered, glancing at the rule sheet pinned up by the entrance. "I see Okamura Foods employs the same proofreader as the Leaf broadsheet, which is to say an eyeless cave fish which is additionally blind drunk, and of course possesses neither the power of speech nor limbs with which to indicate errors in the text."

"And also doesn't understand the concept of proofreading, being a fish and all," Ami added after taking a look for herself. "But it's all good. Where there's room for ambiguity, there's room for creativity, as the lawyer said to the shrine maiden.

"Speaking of which," she added, "if this is a competition, there's got to be a prize to make it worth the fight–or maybe a forfeit. I love forfeits."

"Go on," Hazō said warily, his missing-nin danger sense not so much tingling as putting on a full symphony orchestra performance with extra trumpets.

"How about this," Ami said. "Whichever of us gets the lowest score has to confess our true feelings to Hazō before the date is over."

Snowflake stared. "D-Don't be ridiculous! I fail to see why anyone would–"

"Lacking confidence, are we?" Ami purred. "Maybe you don't care about him as much as I thought. Or maybe you used up your lifetime supply of courage with that famous kiss of yours?"

Famous kiss? Dammit, Mari.

"I'm no expert," Ami said. "No, that's a lie, I'm a world-class expert, and I'm pretty sure Hazō is into bold, forthright women who don't hide how they feel. Just look at Akane. Buuut, if you're willing to let me win by default…"

"Hold on," Hazō protested, partly for the sake of Snowflake, who was turning all kinds of interesting colours, but partly for his own safety. "That doesn't work. What if I get the lowest score?"

"Same thing," Ami said. "You pick whichever of us you like more and confess your true feelings to her. Of course," she added, giving Snowflake a smug look, "we already know who that's going to be."

This was going to be a bloodbath.

"F-Fine!" Snowflake exclaimed unexpectedly just as Hazō was about to protest further. "Then I will see you on the battlefield!"

Hazō could only watch helplessly as she strode off towards the baking ingredients, picking up an apron and a bag of flour with the gravity of a woman arming and armouring herself to challenge the gods themselves.

Ami, monster that she was, just giggled a little before heading off to browse the meat and fish storage scrolls.

Hazō, lacking their momentum, stood in thought for a couple of minutes, scanning through his mental list of recipes capable of challenging two masters of optimisation. He had too little breadth of experience and too much sanity to challenge Ami for "Most Unique Dish", and too little information to guess what strategy Snowflake, whom he'd never seen cook, might choose. In the end, he decided to go with a dish both delicious and guaranteed to be new to even the most jaded gourmet: Kagome-sensei's definitely-won't-poison-you stew, the urban evolution of the legendary probably-won't-poison-you stew that had kept them going through brutal months in the wilderness (as long as they made sure at least one person ate something else that meal).

-o-​

Hazō's stew bubbled away merrily, mere minutes from completion and the certain victory that would save him from mortally offending one of his two dates. On the far side of the arena, Snowflake was pulling a tray out of the oven with the unique alertness of a woman who would cease to exist if she so much as brushed against it. And at the judges' dais…

"Miss Ori Mami, please present your dish for judgement!"

Ami crossed the arena with the pride and poise of a cat carrying a dead bird home to her unsuspecting owner. From here, Hazō couldn't quite make out what was on her plate.

"Please accept my humble offering, Master Okamura."

Okamura studied the dish in front of him, a smile slowly spreading across his face.

"Why, this arrangement looks just like the symbol of the little trading company I ran before I founded Okamura's, back when the future was a mystery and I had to live every day on my wits. Goodness, that brings back memories. If this tastes half as good as it looks…"

Ami picked up the chopsticks from the plate before Okamura could, quickly scooping up a piece of her mysterious food and lifting it towards him. He opened his mouth–

-o-​

"I've never seen anything like it," Noburi said with bitter wonder as he stepped back from the bed. "'Stunned', 'Overwhelmed', and 'Undone', all from a single bite. I've never even heard of 'Undone' before, and I'll remind you I've read Orochimaru's medical research notes. If this poor sod had taken a single shift of stress more, it would've been curtains. What the hell did you feed him?"

"Sushi," Ami said innocently.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Sushi," Ami repeated. "Just ordinary madara nigiri. You can't tell me that sounds remotely dubious."

Noburi looked back and forth between Ami and Okamura's comatose form.

"You mean to tell me you did this with uncooked, salted fish and plain rice? How? Why? How?"

"Will he survive?" Snowflake asked. "My romantic entanglement with Ami and Hazō is hardly worth the life of an innocent man."

"Your what?!" Noburi demanded. "No, you know what. Never mind. I don't want to know. Yes, he'll survive, and yes, you're in for the lawsuit from hell once he wakes up. Once he finds out a bunch of ninja poisoned him after illegally infiltrating the competition…"

"Oh, I wouldn't worry too much about that," Ami said. "I made sure to grab a copy of the rules on my way out. They quite clearly say that nobody can be held liable if the competition gets cancelled because of an act of cod."

-o-​

Voting is closed.

 

[eaglejarl]

Chapter 675: Time's Cold Hand​

"Mari, you okay?" Hazō asked quietly.

She looked up at him from her seat by the fire. Her expression was lively, that mischievous smile tugging at her lips the way it always did.

"I'm always fine, Hazō," she said. "Please tell me you're not doing the rounds again? Checking in with everyone, trying to head off drama? That's my gig now and I will have you know that I am on top of it. No problem shall—"

"Mari."

She pretend-glowered at him for a moment...and then gave up and let the vivacious shell slide away to reveal the true face behind it. Or, at least, the next face.

"What's wrong?" Hazō asked, keeping his voice low. Kagome-sensei was starwatching a few dozen yards from the fire, lying on his back on a blanket sturdy enough that neither vampire grass nor boreworms would be able to breach it. His hands were folded behind his head and, the last Hazō had seen, he had worn a quiet smile.

Noburi and Yuno were on a walk, hand in hand while Satsuko chaperoned from Yuno's belt. Tenten had gone to bed. Snowflake and Kei were heads together across the fire, arguing about some point of philosophy (probably?) that Hazō could make neither heads nor fins of. They probably wouldn't notice a low-voiced conversation.

Mari studied him for a moment, visibly deciding whether or not to share, and then shrugged.

"It's a few things," she said. "I look at Noburi and Yuno glowing at each other, and I'm happy for them that they have this relationship, but I'm sad that I never will." The corner of her full lips twitched in something that wasn't a smile but her eyes were far away. "I had my chance, you know. Tomorrow will be the anniversary of when I broke up with Kinu. That was before I switched to I&S; if I had stayed combat track I maybe could have made it work with her. We could have been happy together. That won't happen now."

"It could," Hazō said gently. "You just need to meet the right person." Kinu? Had he heard that name before?

She puffed a laugh. "Hazō, I'm the Lady of a Great Clan. I am never going to have a relationship based purely on love, even if that were possible for me. Plus, I'm an I&S ninja. Relationships are hard enough for any ninja, but for people like me..." She shrugged.

"Mari, are you spiraling again? Back to that whole 'I am a terrible person who can't help but manipulate everyone'? Because we don't have Tsunade with us to kick you out of it, so if you are then I'd appreciate a heads-up so I can go get her."

"I'm fine, Hazō," she said, still staring into the campfire. She was likely staring off into memory and didn't realize her eyes were pointed at the fire. Ninja didn't stare into the fire; it ruined your night vision and left you vulnerable.

Unable to think what else to say, Hazō sat with her, keeping his vision to the side so that he could see the crackle of the flames in his peripheral vision and feel the heat on his face.

"It's the end of September," she said after a time. "My birthday is in a month and it's the last one where I can call myself young."

"You're not old," he said.

"Not for another month, no."

"Oh please. You're...what, twenty-f...three?" He changed his guess quickly when she shot him a narrow-eyed look.

"I'm a woman, Hazō. Men can get rugged or craggy or distinguished as they age. Women just get old. Plus, I'm an I&S ninja. I've spent my entire life training for that. I've given up relationships, the ability to have relationships with the vast majority of people. I've made love to men and then cut their throats in the afterglow. I've made people fall in love with me and then betrayed them. I've fallen in love with people and then betrayed them. All of those skills, that training, those experiences, I spent an entire lifetime building myself around them. Female I&S ninja have an expiration date, Hazō. Once we get old we aren't as appealing and we lose much of our ability to do the job. What am I if I can't do that?" She waved a hand impatiently to cut him off. "I know, I know. I'm more than my job, I'm valued for who I am, I can still be useful, I haven't been doing I&S work for years now, blah blah. Up here," she tapped her temple, "I know all that."

Hazō sat with that, trying to imagine what Mari must be feeling before he said anything. He wasn't even eighteen.

"If you can't continue as who you were," he said at last, "you'll grow into someone else. You'll grow into whoever you choose to be, and hopefully whoever you want to be."

"Ah, getting very wise very young, I see. I'm not sure what I would have done if you weren't here to help me out of my depression spiral with your insightful words." There was just enough teasing layered under the terribly sincere respectfulness for Hazō to notice.

"I know. I'm glad you appreciate it."

She snorted.

"What would you have done differently?"

She thought about it, still staring into the fire. They had used some logs from their scrolls as starters but most of what was on it was gathered from the surrounding area, and wet. It popped, throwing an ember off into the night.

"I don't know," she said at last. "There are things I regret, things that make me cringe when I remember them, but if I changed anything then I wouldn't be the person sitting here. I...mostly like who I am. Usually. Plus, if I had done things differently then maybe I wouldn't have gone along with Dan's idea of founding Hidden Swamp. I would still be a Mist ninja...well, actually, I'd probably be dead. Yagura and I weren't a good match and...we weren't a good match. If I hadn't chosen you all for the swamp then we wouldn't have found the Pangolin Scroll and used it to join Leaf. You would never have met Kagome and given him the idea for skywalkers. Leaf would never have baited out Yagura, Akatsuki would never had tried their ritual, AMITY would never have existed."

"The Dragons would have destroyed the Seventh Path if you hadn't chosen me for the swamp," Hazō said quietly. "The battle was very close. If the sixth one had been there, the one we killed with the skyslicer, we would have lost. The Dragons would have eaten a dozen Clan Bosses and become unstoppable. You indirectly saved an entire world of people."

"Yay, rah, go me," she said. "It doesn't change the fact that I'm feeling my mortality. Everything I've been is falling away. I've been out of the field long enough that I'm not sure I could do an I&S mission anymore. Even if we somehow beat Akatsuki, open the rift, get Jiraiya and Akane and everyone back...what then? Will Jiraiya still think I'm not marriage material? Maybe he makes a politically better match and I continue as the Gōketsu spymistress. Could I even do that? I pooched it before, with the chocolate."

"Yes, it's true. I suppose you're no good for anything and should go off and become a hermit before you inflict more damage on us. Sure, you kept us alive in the wilderness and raised us up until we became a Great Clan in Leaf, but I'm sure that's all coincidence."

"You're not as funny as you think. Don't quit your day job."

"I am precisely as funny as I think, you just don't appreciate my comedy."

"Hmph."

He chuckled in amusement. And then he slipped an arm around her shoulders and she leaned on him and they didn't speak.

---

XP AWARD: 1 This was basically an interlude but I'm calling it a chapter and it fits into the timeline, so I'll give at least one point.

"GM had fun" XP: 1 'Fun' isn't exactly the right word, but it was good to write.

Voting remains closed until @Velorien opens it.

 

[Velorien]

Interlude: From Higher to Lower​

Formally, Tenten was on overwatch. She could see everyone from her plateau. She was far from the tunnels so she would not fall before she could warn them. But the cave beasts weren't a random encounter to roll for. They were hunters. They would strike when the team was vulnerable, and not before. Not now, while everyone was alert.

The water was emerald from this angle. Sparkling emerald. Where had it come from? Was it happy here, even knowing there was no way back? Was it happy feeding the animals? Would it still be happy when Uplift used its blessing to destroy?

Tenten was water too. In her oldest memories, she was clear, empty. No past left and no future to imagine. Just pouring from higher to lower, down whichever path led to survival. When the ninja found her and brought her to Leaf, that was higher to lower, the path of least resistance. When shurikenjutsu chose her, when Gai-sensei chose her, when Kei chose her, higher to lower. But with Kei, she'd finally found her place. Her purpose. No longer flowing. A still lake of peace for the girl who had everything but peace.

Then the bottom fell out of the world, and Tenten fell with it. From higher to lower. Inevitably.

She was still falling.

What was her purpose now? She couldn't be the peace Kei needed. She couldn't be the village's unkilling blade. But she also didn't know how to be clear water anymore.

She had no answers. Only overwatch.

So she overwatched. She watched over Kei's family. Kei had told these people to her countless times. Tenten knew them off by heart. Tenten had wanted to know them herself countless times. But she knew her limits. She knew better than to try. Except suddenly, she was Uplift. Her limits didn't matter.

She watched Noburi kneeling by the edge of the pool, left hand reaching in. Water inside communing with water outside. Which one was learning more?

Noburi smiled. Noburi laughed. Even as he carried the weight of his curse on his back. They talked about it like a tool, but it wasn't a tool. Tenten's shuriken were tools. They were who she was, but if they broke, she didn't go away. She could pick up small rocks, and they would be who she was until she could resupply. They had been once, after all.

Noburi kept his curse close, always. As if he would die if he ever reached out and found that it wasn't there. Even when he went to the hospital to get away from it, he brought it with him. Not that it mattered, in the end. The hospital couldn't protect him. His curse was needed here, so he came here. From higher to lower, and he only kept what he loved if the curse allowed it.

(Target the barrel. Destruction not needed; a leak will suffice, assuming opportunities for repairs are denied. Once without chakra, incapacitation is trivial.)

Yuno watched him fondly, Satsuko resting in her lap. Tenten and Yuno understood each other perfectly. Broken people died in the wilderness. To survive, you had to cast off the broken parts. But then you left the wilderness, and purity turned into emptiness. Broken things could be fixed, but it took magic to bring back what wasn't there.

Tenten and Yuno had survived. They'd found their magic. They were fighting, so hard, to become the people they could have been. People they could only try to imagine. People who might never exist. And both of them would kill or die, without hesitation, to protect the source of that hope.

Tenten wanted to befriend Yuno. She wanted to know what they could teach each other about becoming human again. She wanted to make sure they never had to kill each other. But it meant Tenten needed to communicate.

(Target hamstrings and calcaneal tendons. Yuno's threat is her mobility. Note: is Satsuko effective as a ranged weapon?)

Satsuko troubled Tenten. A warrior's weapon was her soul. And vice versa. But it worked because the warrior was one with her weapon. Yuno wasn't. Yuno had given Satsuko a piece of her own soul. Only Satsuko wasn't a person. She was an evil-looking black axe with special grooves for the blood. She couldn't grow, couldn't change. The piece of Yuno's soul inside her was frozen in time. It would bind her to the person she used to be until she took it back, and that would mean killing her best friend.

(Use ninja wire to tie in place after distracting or incapacitating Yuno.)

Mari sat at a safe distance from Yuno, looking longingly at the pool. Mari confused Tenten. Mari was the anti-Tenten. She could say anything. She could do anything. She could make people believe she was anyone. Why, then, did she make Tenten believe she was lonely?

Tenten didn't understand it. She could see the gap between Mari and the others. The gap Kei described perfectly, apparently without realising it was there. She could see Mari refusing to be seen, refusing to be understood. Always playful. Always in control. Only vulnerable when cornered, only until she could get away. If Mari could have any mask she wanted, why wouldn't she pick one that made her happy?

(Do not engage.)

Kagome was adding another layer to the perimeter. He was a living explosion. Afraid to get close because others would enter his blast radius, and he didn't know how not to hurt them. Afraid to unleash his full enthusiasm near them because it would go out of control. But an explosion couldn't restrain itself. He let Kei get close again just days ago. He ranted three times about sealing safety in Tenten's hearing. Once about explosives. Twice about perimeter security. Snowflake thought he was holding back out of consideration for the newcomer.

Two people labelled obsessive just for loving the objectively best weapon in existence. Two people who would set family, and only family, above that love. Two people who'd given up on being known. Who owed an eternal debt to those who'd taught them better. Who were still so clumsy, and hated it. Everyone was so surprised that they had rapport.

(Exhaust, then incapacitate while unconscious. Do not attempt to surprise or disarm.)

Finally, there was Hazō, sitting in a corner. Staring at a chunk of crystal as if reading a difficult book. It was almost funny. Except that he was Hazō.

Hazō was a hundred paintings on a single canvas. Castles floating in the heavens. Nations crossed with a single glide. Samurai slaying Dragons. Paint unravelling itself into maddening abstraction. Lovers dancing beneath the summer sky. He was dreams and visions and ideas. Intersecting and overlapping. Twisting each other into new shapes. His family said he was straightforward. Tenten wondered if they'd spent too long as hostages.

He was what lay at the bottom of the hole. All of them–now Tenten, too–fell towards him. Irresistibly. When he called, they answered. Without question. Whatever they had to abandon. Whoever they had to betray. When he told them to dream Uplift, they dreamed Uplift. Whatever their dreams had been before. When he gave them a mission, an order, a suggestion, he was their Kage. (Unless it was stupid. This was why he was still alive.)

Kei had abandoned every responsibility to follow him here. She had betrayed every trust. She had erased her future with her own hand. All of them had. And still they claimed he was just a genius sealmaster?

(Sever sealing pouch belt, then target wrists and elbows as they move into a predictable position to retrieve the falling pouch. Preventing ranged seal deployment is key, after which inferior reflexes can be freely exploited. Do not target the sealing pouch itself. The seals are very valuable. Also, may end the world.)

Kei had told Tenten to choose between her and everything else, and Tenten chose her. But Hazō had told Kei to choose between him and everything else, and Kei chose Hazō. Did she hesitate? Did she struggle with herself? Or did she flow like Tenten, from higher to lower?

Would Tenten ever forget that when, after years of perfect trust, their feelings had finally been put to the test, they'd turned out not to be symmetrical?

Tenten didn't look to see what Kei and Snowflake were doing together. She was on overwatch. The enemy could strike at any moment.

-o-​

Voting is closed.

 

[eaglejarl]

Interlude: Those Left Behind More Recently​

Daiki was a fidgeter. It was a bad habit that he hadn't been able to shake, but it was who he was. He fidgeted when he got bored. He fidgeted when he was impatient. He fidgeted extra hard when he was both bored and impatient. Under the circumstances, he was struggling not to dance in place. Had he been alone he wouldn't have bothered restraining himself, but there were three hundred pairs of eyes fixed on him right now.

"Are you done yet?!" he finally called, losing the fight to remain motionless and placid. His second, a clanless ninja named Machi, smiled very slightly where he leaned against the base of the road.

"Almost, sir!" the civilian called up. "One more moment, please, honored ninja! I need to make sure the base of the trench is packed or it will settle under the weight."

"Chill, Daiki," Machi said. The clanless ninja was responsible for overwatch while Daiki was focusing on his jutsu casting. He was also annoyingly phlegmatic, the perfect anti-Daiki, always happy to sit around like a stone and wait just as patiently. Or, in this case, to stand around leaning on the ten-foot wall that was this particular segment of the Nature-Overcoming Bustling Ultimate Road Initiative. (Or, as a small fraction of people insisted on calling it, the Nature-Overcoming Byway and Urgency-facilitating Road Initiative. Daiki had no idea why the two versions existed.)

Daiki growled back at him but said nothing specific. Experience had showed that it wasn't worth it; Machi refused to engage.

It was well more than a moment, more like two minutes, but eventually the civilian pulled himself out of the trench. The incline of the trench was steep enough that he occasionally put one hand on the ground in front of himself for balance as he made his way up the slope from the lowest point—six yards down—to ground level where Daiki waited at the base of the road.

"Ready?" Daiki demanded.

"Ready, sir," the civilian said, bowing deeply.

"Finally! Go check in with the next crew, make sure they're ready when I get there."

"Yes, sir."

Daiki sat down and made the handseals for the Massive And Rapid Infrastructure jutsu, then breathed chakra out of his hara and into the world. Oddly, in the middle of a jutsu was the one time he had no trouble not fidgeting. Even, or perhaps especially, a jutsu such as MARI which required such a long start-up time.

It took ten minutes to saturate the area with his chakra; only then did he start the process of pulling the massive wall out of the ground. It rose slowly, taking perhaps a minute to reach full size. When it peaked, he spent another ten minutes casting it again, and then a third time, thickening the wall each time.

The wall produced by MARI was always vertical, always straight, and always three yards high from ground level, regardless of where ground level was. Which meant that if you cast it on a slope, you got a ramp. In this case, you got a ramp that merged with the existing NOBURI road segment in order to provide the three hundred villagers sitting behind Daiki with a way to drag their produce carts onto the elevated road that would allow them to drag their produce carts to a market in Leaf that would pay them better than anything local. Mostly because there were no local markets, since traveling from one village to another on roads was unsafe before the NOBURI elevated roads.

Daiki let the final casting of the jutsu fade, the last shreds of chakra dissipating through the ground. He stood, brushing the dirt off his knees before turning to the villagers.

"It is done," he said simply.

The words broke a dam and suddenly the civilians were on their feet, cheering and waving their hands in excitement.

o-o-o-o​

"Here's your veg, and here's your change," the merchant said, passing Mama the carrots and a trio of coins.

Mutsumi stood on tiptoes so she could see. What she saw made her frown and tug on her mother's pantsleg.

"What is it, sweetie?" Mama asked, looking down in surprise. Mutsumi beckoned her down and Mama bent.

"It's not the right change, Mama," Mutsumi whispered in her ear. "You gave him ten ryō and the carrots were four. You should have gotten six back, not three. He owes you three more."

Mama stood and turned back to the merchant, her eyes full of rage. "Are you trying to cheat me, you tiny-dicked jackass?! Where's my three coins?!"

The merchant reared back as though he'd been slapped. "What are you talking about? I gave you your three coins! You're holding them!" He pointed at the coins in her palm.

"It should be six, you syphilitic worm! Where's the rest?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about! I gave you the proper change."

"You did not! I gave you ten ryō for four ryō of carrots. I should have gotten six ryō back."

The merchant looked down at Mutsumi, visibly putting together what had happened. "Is your child telling lies? Do you honestly believe that your little anklebiter knows how to make change better than myself, a master merchant who—"

"Mutsumi is in her second year at the Gōketsu Academy and you will not insult her. If she says it's six, it's six. Give me my three other coins!"

Heads were starting to turn, other merchants and casual browsers looking over to see what the noise was all about. The merchant's eyes flicked around, visibly doing the math on whether or not it was worth it to keep fighting this.

"Fine," he said, rolling his eyes dramatically. "I gave you the proper change, but I can tell you'll stand here all day shouting and blocking my other customers. Fine, here's three more ryō. Off with you!" He practically threw the coins into her outstretched, demanding palm.

"Hmph. You should be ashamed of yourself," Mama told him, looking down her nose at the man. "Don't try this with anyone else or I'll tell the ninja and you'll be sent home and barred from Leaf's gates ever again. If you're lucky."

"Fine, whatever. Your girl is wrong but it's worth three ryō to get you out of here." He looked away, scanning across the crowd and waving at the generic passerby. "Carrots! Winter squash! Beans and rice! Delicious provender at reasonable prices! Come see, come see!"

o-o-o-o​

Shigeyuki pulled the bucket up from the well one last time and emptied it into the rightmost bucket on his yoke. He slipped the locking pin into the upright of the well, preventing the crank from turning and dropping the bucket back into the water.

He paused for a minute, eyeing the well with a small smile. A year ago he would have needed to walk to the very edge of the village to get water from the river. He would have needed to bring one of his brothers, or perhaps his oldest son, to carry the spear and guard against animal attack. Now? Now he went to the center of the village, not fifty steps from the door of his house.

Speaking of which, what a door it was! Shigeyuki had no actual training as a carpenter, but he was a child of the farms; he could shoe a horse, drive a nail, remove the spines and butcher a sheep, and do all the other things necessary for survival. Well, except cooking and baking. Those were women's work and he had never learned.

Still, everything had changed when the Gōketsu had come through six months ago and brought the Nara Future Foundation with them. Now, everyone had sturdy houses, many of them made of stone by ninja magic. Conjured or built, every one of the houses had thick doors that fit so tightly all you needed was a bit of cloth against the threshold and there was no draft at all. Throughout the entire village, not a single chimney ever let smoke drift back into the room. (Well, as long as you lit your fires correctly, but what kind of idiot didn't know that?)

Best of all, they hadn't simply done it themselves unless asked. They had taught the farmers what they needed to know; more advanced forms of masonry and carpentry, tricks to predict the weather, and more. They had provided new seeds that grew faster and heavier, and draft animals to till the fields. A handful of the teachers, mostly the Gōketsu ones, had been ninja while the rest were civilians just like himself. One of the instructors, Master Tanaka the expert weaver, was a young and handsome man past whom the village mothers had trawled each and every marriage-age daughter they had. Master Tanaka had intended to teach here for three months, then move on to the next settlement. He was now permanently settled and there would likely be a new Tanaka in the spring if Kotoe's constant dreamy smiles and rumpled hair were anything to go by. The leader of the Nara Future Foundation had heard Tanaka's change of plans, sighed, muttered something about 'staff erosion', and then wished Tanaka and his new bride well and gone on his way.

Yes, the village of Stone Faces was recovering nicely after the damage caused during the war. Indeed, with all the new immigrants they had twice the population and a vastly higher standard of living. Indeed, Shigeyuki had five full sets of clothes and a thick coat that kept him truly warm in all but the coldest weather.

And the taxes had gone down! Who ever heard of taxes going down? It was impossible.

Oh, and as long as we were talking about impossible: the ninja were actually delivering bags of ryō to every household, every month. Not buying anything, just...dropping them off. It had taken a while to get the concept through that yes, this money was for the village to use for whatever they wanted and no, the ninja were not going to be back tomorrow to take it. Every living soul in the village, down to the babes in arms, received a hundred ryō per month. Children's money was given to the parents so, needless to say, even more wives were pregnant than usual for this time of year.

Perhaps strangest of all were the smiles. They were on...well, basically all the faces. Not every moment, certainly—people still had setbacks or problems that made them glower, breakups that made them cry, and a handful of people had never had the ability to smile. Still, on an average day the average person was smiling. It was weird, and wonderful, and Shigeyuki could only assume that he was living in a story.

It was a nice story, and he hoped he could keep living in it.

o-o-o-o​

---

XP AWARD: 0 It's an interlude.

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Wednesday, Aug 28, 2024 at 7:00 AM .

 

[Velorien]

Interlude: Dreaming of Home​

​

Someone passed Yuno a bowl of rice. A pair of chopsticks stuck out of it, vertically. Yuno took it.

"Welcome home, Yuno," Grandfather said, without feeling, doing nothing but stating a fact. The way he did if their paths crossed the day she came back from a hunt.

"I have returned, Grandfather," Yuno said, twisting her hand in the sign of the closed circle. She placed the bowl on the red tablecloth in front of her, inside Grandfather's shadow. Everything was inside Grandfather's shadow.

If Grandfather's shadow was too big, it was because Yuno was so little. Yes, now she remembered. This wasn't when she came back from a hunt. This was when Daddy had just died, and Grandfather was still deciding whether he loved her.

That made sense. Inside Yuno, Daddy had always just died, though these days she was very good at forgetting it. But you weren't allowed to forget things at home, where you were always surrounded by people who remembered.

"You're holding your chopsticks wrong," Grandfather observed with a scowl of distaste. "Is nothing your parents taught you worthy of the Kannagi? Hold them like that and the anima will drain away before it reaches your mouth."

Actually, Yuno wasn't holding them at all. Every time she tried, they slipped through her fingers. Finally, she tied them in place with a length of ribbon, and that worked.

"I don't hold my chopsticks the way Daddy taught me anymore," she corrected him. "This is the Fire Country way. You have to hold them like this or people look at you like you're a barbarian. I tried explaining about anima at first, but that was even worse."

"It sounds like a terrible place," Azai Shūsuke told her. "I hope it was worth betraying Akio's teachings and your entire people for." He stood up from his seat, revealing the enormous gash down the front of his ceremonial robe, lined in bright red like a ward against the One Who Silently Hastens the Cycle.

"You're not here," Yuno said accusingly. "I killed you. I killed you very much." Just looking at him brought back the memory, sent sticky, visceral joy pouring in a torrent from his sternum through her entire body.

"You killed us all," the High Priest said, walking over to the window, hands folded behind him in a public speech posture. "I was going to make Isan strong. Cruel, maybe, and not what you were hoping for, but I had a plan. And what did you do? You danced on Takahashi's strings. You pulled Isan into a war that was none of our concern and got your fellow descendants of Akio killed on impure soil for people who treat our wisdom as comedy. Then you let Leaf's enemies massacre us for it."

He threw the window open. On the other side, beneath an ashen sky, there were only ruins. The Kannagi compound, reduced to shards of broken steel. The Inoue, a bonfire of ragged scriptures. Tapirs lay in the streets, puddles of flesh and bone struggling to take their last breaths. Not a single human body. Nobody she could kill. Nobody she could save.

Yuno ran out, beneath the ashen sky of Leaf, to where Hyūga Hiashi waited for her.

"In answer to the question," he said coolly, "no, it was most certainly not worth it. I permitted you to join us. I offered you a new home in place of the one you abandoned. But once a foreigner, always a foreigner. At least I didn't live to see how you repaid my kindness."

Below, easily visible from the Hokage Monument, Leaf burned.

"I-I didn't do anything! Yuno exclaimed. "All I did was leave!"

"Your personal culpability is limited," the Sixth Hokage conceded. "The other foreigners made much greater contributions to Leaf, and so did much more damage with their betrayals."

There was only a deep, dark chasm where the Nara compound should have been. Chakra beasts swarmed the KEI headquarters outside the village walls, tearing apart whoever they found. The General Hospital had transformed into a writhing mass of disease spirits, constantly fed by unsent souls rising from a festering mass of body parts, while in the background, a chorus of helpless wailing rose from a thousand distant villages.

"Uplift," the Hokage said sardonically. "All those speeches about how we were doomed to extinction without you, right before you abandoned us to our fate."

"It's not my fault!" Yuno pleaded. "Hazō and the others are the people who understand Uplift! If they say this way is better, how am I supposed to say they're wrong?"

"You never tried to grasp the big picture," the Hokage agreed. "Considering your pitiful intellect, perhaps it was even humility rather than laziness. Forget the world, then. Let's talk about you."

The Hokage took off his hat, and Yuno saw far away, with the inescapable accuracy of the Byakugan.

Yuki, only the top half. Shichi, empty in a pool of his own blood. Countless pieces of Inuzuka and Yatsuzakimaru, intermixed. Team after team, bodies arranged in formations they'd practised together.

"You killed them all. Personally, in fact."

They'd come after Yuno, the betrayer, out of duty or out of pain, and Yuno was a survivor. Until one of them was finally stronger, it would end this way every time.

"Of course, not everything you kill is life," the Hokage said. "You had more pupils than you'd ever expected. I wonder what has become of their hearts, to see their beloved Gōketsu-sensei spit on the Will of Fire? Once a missing-nin, always a missing-nin, I should have said. Why did you even bother making all those bonds to begin with?"

The Hokage led her to the Hokage Tower, the most important place in Leaf. Through those gates lay the Bloody Cleaver Style dojo, but the dojo was only a smouldering wreck of what should have been. Yuno couldn't even read the sign.

"Even your dream shared their fate," the Hokage commented. "Not worth much considering how easily you left it behind, is it? I wonder how Fujisawa Miyuki feels about you breaking your promise."

"I don't," said the Great Prophet with a lazy smirk, leaning against the entrance, Sanjin casually pinning Fujisawa's head to the dojo sign. At his feet, a notebook page was completely black.

"It doesn't take the Pangolin Summoner to know what happened to Fujisawa after ya abandoned her. Now, fightin' for yer friends ain't exactly Jashinist style, but at the end of the day, blood is blood is blood. Thus spake me. Reckon she'd still be alive if ya stayed behind to protect ner?"

"I-I don't have to listen to you!" Yuno insisted. "You ran!"

But the Great Prophet's grin only got wider.

"Yeah, I ran. And that was just from the Eighth and a bunch of jōnin. Imagine if Leaf stopped bein' such pussies and got him, Tsunade, and Orochimaru together, plus their Dragon-killin' tricks. That's what it means to fight. It's what Lord Jashin teaches, and ya don't need no Great Prophet to tell ya that. But no, ya let them take the Gōketsu, Leaf's lump of crazy firepower, and run as far as they could. What're ya fightin' now, otters? Do ya think that sacrifice'll save Fujisawa, assumin' it's not already too late?"

"Hazō has his reasons," Yuno said feebly. "He's a genius, and he says this is how we win in the end."

"And ya goin' to pretend ya had the teeniest inklin' of that when ya went missin'?" the Great Prophet asked, ascending straight up on his skywalkers. Yuno could only follow him.

"Or did ya just throw it all away because it was the only way to stay with Noburi?"

Yuno couldn't speak. She tried, but nothing came out.

"Once Hazō ordered it, he was goin'. Ya know it, I know it, the freakin' cat(?) knows it. And yer still nothin' without him. Just a crazy little monster. Only…"

The Great Prophet pointed down, to the magic pool beneath them. Yuno watched as the water turned crimson, then swelled, then swelled again, then overflowed. The flood kept spreading without end, filling the cave, drowning the desert, drowning the world.

"There ain't room in that barrel for all the blood ya bring with ya. Ya got by in the civilised world somehow, but out here, there's nothin' left but ya true self. Nothin' left for ya to do but be ya true self, whether it's to beasts or hunter-nin or Akatsuki."

"That's not true! It's not!"

The Great Prophet gave her a smile of twisted kindness and lifted up his finger. The blood followed, pouring upwards in a ribbon, the only colour in a world of grey.

"Ya kill things, hopin' it'll make yer family love ya. That's where ya begin and end."

The red ribbon twisted, into a path, into a figure-of-eight, into a tablecloth for a feast that would never fill.

Lord Jashin passed Yuno a bowl of rice. A pair of chopsticks stuck out of it, vertically. Yuno took it.

"Welcome home, Yuno," Grandfather said, without feeling, doing nothing but stating a fact.

-o-​

Voting is closed.

 

[eaglejarl]

(Canon?) Interlude: Akatsuki's Mauling​

Spoiler: Unrevealed rolls

Sorry folks. Given the characters in the update it should be obvious that I can't reveal any of the rolls. Rather than wasting time with writing stuff with lots of question marks, it's easier to simply leave all the mechanics out.

"Huh," Kisame said, looking around with his hands on his hips. "I haven't seen this much chakra bubbling around in ages. You weren't wrong, kid."

"Don't call me 'kid'," Itachi said. There wasn't a lot of heat in the words. Not anymore, since hope that the instruction would actually be followed had long since died. Short of setting the shark-man on fire, nothing Itachi could do would get Kisame to stop using that annoying descriptor.

The two stood atop another rocky hillside among the endless rolling waves of rocky hillsides in Earth Country, perhaps eighty or a hundred miles southwest of Hidden Rock itself. Far enough that they were unlikely to encounter a patrol, but close enough that it was necessary to keep an eye out just in case.

"How'd you find this place, anyway?" Kisame asked, turning slowly in place as he reached out with his strange more-than-human senses. His hands floated in front of himself, stroking the air the way one might stroke fabric to determine its softness. He stared at his fine-scaled fingers in fascination, curling them and twisting them while watching the way their motion disturbed the local chakra flows. It was a thing that few living humans could perceive, and Kisame was one of the very few who could do it without having the clan name 'Hyūga' or 'Uchiha'. Granted, from what he had told Itachi he didn't actually see chakra the way the Sharingan did, but—

"Oy!" Kisame said, snapping his fingers at Itachi.

"Hm? Oh, right." Itachi shrugged. "I got stuck partnering CrazyPants and he wanted to go track down that Gōketsu kid who bailed out of Leaf recently. We were passing through this area a few days ago and I felt the hairs on my neck stand up the same way they did when we fought the golem. I wasn't sure it was the same, so..." He shrugged. "Second opinion."

Kisame went still for a moment at the word 'golem'. The Sharingan showed Itachi the tiny, unconscious movements of the man's facial muscles. The movements that showed sadness at Akatuski's joint loss and longing for the time when they had all had purpose and leadership. The time when things were simple and the path forward was clear.

"I miss him too," Kisame said quietly, not looking at his companion. "Everything is harder now."

Itachi cleared his throat and quickly moved the conversation to safer ground before his Sharingan became filmed over with tears. "So, do you think we're likely to see another eruption?"

"Yeah," Kisame said, nodding grimly. "Question is, do we try to dig down and harvest the metal before it erupts so as to head the whole thing off, or do we just bail?"

"And if we 'bail', do we notify Rock?"

"Yeah, and that."

Itachi chewed his lip, staring at the ground. One of the few things that the Sharingan did not do was allow one to see through solid rock.

"Can you tell where exactly the nodule is likely to be?" he asked. "I mean, I obviously know where it is but a second opinion is always helpful."

Kisame snorted. "This is why I call you 'kid'. Yeah, looks like it's about...here?" He paced to the side a few steps, then uncertainly one more, paused, and crouched to press his hand to the ground. "I think we can—"

An arm of living earth shot out of the ground and caught Kisame's wrist, yanking him down into the ground. The earth parted easily for his arm, overbalancing him so that he slammed his face into the hard-packed clay and rocks of Earth Country. The shark-man got one hand up in time to barely cushion the blow; Itachi winced at the crack of bone from Kisame's left wrist.

"Lightning Element Technique: Earth Dissolution!" Itachi shouted, fingers flicking through handseals as he blasted out the most powerful instance of the technique he had ever used. Raiton energy surged outwards and the ground beneath Kisame's knees was instantly converted to fine powder that exploded outwards. Itachi didn't wait to see what happened; he turned and sprinted east as fast as his chakra could carry him.

The golem was made of particles and nodules of chakra metal held together with earth and stone that had soaked up so much chakra from the environment that it had become semi-liquid. The technique did nothing to the chakra metal, but the earth that bound it together was eliminated. Bits of silvery metal fell into a pile at the bottom of the pit that Itachi had just created.

The pit was thirty feet wide, fifty feet deep, and centered on Kisame; the older ninja plummeted without a chance to catch himself, but lightning reflexes scooped the massive sword off his back and flung it outwards. The bandages that normally wrapped it spooled out, one end pulling back to loop itself around Kisame in a harness while the other end remained secured around the hilt of Samehada, the Shark Skin Blade.

Loosed from its cover, the Blade was revealed for what it was: a swarm of sharks fused together by ancient arts thankfully lost to the ages. Hundreds of mouths snapped, clamping onto the wall of the pit like a piton. The bandages tightened, reeling Kisame to the wall; the moment his foot touched a solid surface, he leaped up and out.

"That's not going to stop it! Run!" the shark-man shouted, hitting the ground and promptly sprinting away with so much chakra boost that the ground exploded beneath his sandals.

"Obviously!" Itachi snapped, already well on his way. Despite forty feet of head start, Kisame's ludicrous chakra reserves let him boost harder, run faster, and catch up before Itachi even began to form the word. The Blade was once again on Kisame's back and (thankfully!) wrapped in its bandages, compressed down into something that looked vaguely sword-like instead of like the monstrosity that it truly was.

"Can you Surge us out of here?" Itachi demanded as Kisame fell in next to him. He cursed when Kisame held out his right hand; the fingers were mangled, each joint shattered and splayed, and the pinky was flat-out missing. The sleeve of his robe had been torn away and the skin sanded off most of his forearm, but that was the cost of doing business as a top-tier ninja. The skin would heal but the hand was a problem.

Itachi held a kunai in front of himself, its polished surface providing a distorted and confusing reflection that the Sharingan rendered into a clear and detailed view of what was behind them. Thus, the eldest Uchiha ninja was able to fully appreciate when things went from catastrophic to worse.

There was a SKADOOM and a fountain of sparkling metal blasted up and out of the pit, arcing overhead and pouring itself to the ground in front of the two fleeing ninja. The soil and stones surged upwards on contact as the chakra metal reformed its golem body. This time it had four arms, non-symmetrically distributed and with different numbers of fingers on each. Its head was simply a lump, no neck, with three blazing red gems the size of walnuts in place of eyes.

Itachi poured chakra through the Sharingan, spending his reserves like a drunken wastrel, and the world slowed around him.

The world dragged to a halt and suddenly he was moving through nearly-frozen treacle. His bloodline accelerated his body, making him faster than nearly any ninja alive, but that was nothing compared to the speed of thought and perception that he was granted when he went all-out like this. He had all the time he needed to think, to calculate, to be precise, but his flesh could not remotely keep up. Kisame was moving like a snail.

The golem was moving at half normal ninja speed.

Itachi didn't waste time cursing. He had burned a quarter of his reserves on the Earth Dissolution and the Sharingan demanded a heavy price for its power; he needed this fight to end quickly. How?

Amaterasu? It hadn't done anything to the last golem.

The crows? They wouldn't carry Kisame.

Physical combat was out; chakra metal was indestructible, so the best you could do to a golem was make it fall apart for a few seconds. Besides, Kisame being forced to fight offhand meant that his swordwork would suffer, making a supremely difficult task essentially impossible. Not that his so-called 'chakra-draining' blade had made much of a dent on the last one of these things the team had fought. The golems didn't have chakra, they were chakra. Endless torrents of it. Samehada could drink and drink but could no more drain the golem than it could drain the ocean.

Kisame's ridiculous water jutsu would be the perfect thing to let them escape. Unfortunately, he couldn't make handseals, so no shark summoning and none of those ridiculous water jutsu. You know, the ones that let him travel at ludicrous speeds and that were perfect for locking an opponent in place while you fled for your life. Itachi's Sharingan could copy the jutsu but he would never in his life have the chakra to execute...on...them. Oh. That couldn't work, could it?

Twenty feet in front of them, the golem was raising an arm as though about to throw something. The motion was languid to Itachi's accelerated perception except that he was pushing so hard that he could barely make his own limbs move.

Energy crackled across Kisame's scaled skin, sparks jumping from his gill slits as he burned ridiculous amounts of chakra to push himself even faster. It shouldn't have been possible; there was a limit. Apparently no one had told Kisame that.

The golem's arm reached the apex of its arc and started to come down again.

Itachi grabbed Kisame's arm, feeling his own bones creak and his flesh tear as he forced himself to move faster than his mortal frame could sustain. He dove to the side, blasting chakra repulsion to get them out of the way of the cloud of chakra metal particles that ripped through where they had been an instant before. The cloud would have torn through them and left nothing but shredded meat in its wake; instead it swirled up and around, returning to its main body.

"Water Element: Separating Shark Surge!" Itachi cried, pulling Kisame's left hand out, forcing it flat and slapping his own right fist up under it to form a Dog seal.

Kisame was a master among masters; he was into his thirties, ancient for a ninja. One did not reach that age without thinking fast and understanding an opportunity when it was offered. His chakra flashed within himself, wrapping around their joined hands to form the first chakra construct of the necessary chain.

"Water Element: Separating Shark Surge!" he shouted, then flipped his palm up, fingers curled. The speed and precision of the Sharingan allowed Itachi to push his right hand into place, fingers interlacing with Kisame's to form a Snake seal identical to the way Kisame formed it. Kisame's chakra flickered again, the second construct forming.

It was insane. Handseals were not something that could be shared. Unless one's handseals were perfect, matching precisely the way that one had practiced them for uncounted hours, any jutsu would fail and the chakra would be wasted. Jutsu weren't a team sport, they were unique to each caster's chi and no one did the handseals or the chakra manipulations precisely the same way.

Unless, of course, you had the Sharingan.

It was clumsy and awkward and the resulting jutsu was an abomination of inefficiency, but it was working. Dog, Snake, Ox, Tig—

Itachi screamed as a jet of chakra metal sand tore his right leg off at the knee. He started to fall but Kisame caught him with his destroyed right hand and clamped him hard against the shark-man's side.

Itachi's style and specialty were different, but he was no less a master than Kisame. His will forged in countless battles, his hand did not falter as it matched Kisame's, move for move, handseal for handseal, providing the physical framework atop which the Blademaster could weave the chakra construct for his jutsu.

The final seal was formed and Kisame's chakra clicked into place, the construct that was the jutsu bursting to blazing life and erupting out of the ground below its caster's feet in the form of a massive shark, fully eighty feet long and made purely of construct water—an impossible amount, nothing that should be possible for a human. It bore them aloft and launched itself to the east in a long-arced jump that tore the breath from Itachi's lungs and streamed his long hair out in a straight line behind him. At the same time, a circular wave made of water-construct sharks stormed out from where the two ninja had stood, smashing aside every obstacle and bearing away everything and everyone that wasn't rooted to the bare earth itself.

The chakra golem, fortunately, hadn't been rooted to the bare earth. The wave knocked it off its feet, picked it up and tumbled it this way and that in helpless confusion even as it carried the monster off faster than a ninja could sprint. All the while, the construct sharks broke their teeth on the monster.

---

Voting remains closed. The inimitable @Paperclipped is doing the chapter for Thursday, which will finally execute on the plan.

 

[Paperclipped]

Chapter 676: Chakravore Extermination​

Step-by-slow-step, the team circled around the grotto, weapons and misterators ready to deal with any beasts they encountered. Despite the pool clearly being the center of life in the cave system, they found nothing more animate than the pool's reeds. Those reeds had angled towards the team's back after they passed by and had caught one of Kagome's explosives as a reward.

Once they'd sealed the grotto's every exit (usually roughly, since the Multiple Earth Wall's square shapes couldn't quite close the irregular tunnels), Kagome had started assembling his 'perimeter' – which, thanks to the limited directions of entry, involved much heavier fortifications on each entrance – while Noburi cleared the pool.

"Well, the pool is now five percent dead fish," Noburi said finally, after completing his circuit around the pool's surface, reed scraps parting as he water-walked to the stone shelf where Hazō was experimenting with a crystal he'd carefully separated from a large cluster on the ceiling. "There are other living things in there I can sense, but too deep to drain. Hopefully they're busy snacking on the fishies I just sank, but I'll accompany anyone on the water just in case. Any luck with the rocks, Hazō?"

"Nope," Hazō said, scowling and tossing the translucent hunk of crystal he'd been examining into the lake, where it landed with a satisfying plop. "They're useless. Nothing but rocks."

"Did you figure out why they're glowing and changing color?" Noburi asked.

"Also nothing. Well, there's some weird chakra effect going on inside them that I could see on Kagome-sensei's chakrascope, but that doesn't help us understand it. The piece I broke off went clear and dead as soon as I separated it."

"Could there be light coming from their base somewhere that's illuminating them?"

"I don't… huh," Hazō said. "Maybe. Let's check."

They found a node of crystal on the ceiling barely bigger than either of their fists, and watched as it cycled colors. Pink, blue, green, yellow, back to pink.

Hazō placed his chisel and hammered the crystal free from the wall. It immediately went clear. The wall where it had sat was just bare gray-brown stone.

Hazō tried to channel his chakra into the crystal, then tossed it down into the pool to join its useless brethren. "Nope. The crystals just glow."

"Sure, why not?" Noburi said. "The crystals glow. Some funky chakra effect. Whatever."

"Why?" Hazō asked. "Why do they glow? What's going on in this pool that makes it so different from anywhere else?"

"I dunno," Noburi said. "Chakra's weird, bro. Maybe they just glow. Anyways, while you were banging rocks together, I found something cool. Come check this out."

They dropped to the surface of the pool together, then jumped away into combat stances as they heard an explosion.

"Just a stinker triggering traps on perimeter section seventeen!" Kagome called out. "Reinforcing now!"

There were no further explosions.

"Poor little things," Noburi said. "They'll die of thirst out there."

"Good," Hazō said. "We need to study the pool and replicate its effects. The fewer beasts interrupt us, the better."

"So you don't know why the rocks glow pretty colors, but you'll somehow replicate the pool's effect on the most complex organ system in your body?" Noburi asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes."

"Well, you're in luck. You have one of the world's foremost experts on chakra systems right here," Noburi said, puffing his chest out. "I spent the last three months getting a crash-course on chakra systems from the world's greatest med-nin, after all. Well, we mostly studied my own chakra system, but I'm sure it'll apply to whatever's happening here."

"Honestly? I wanted to make a rune to imitate the water," Hazō said, continuing to follow Noburi to the low stone shelf on the opposite side of the pool.

"Do you think that'll work?" Noburi asked, his voice no longer jokey. "Look around, Hazō. This place is so insanely alive. The mosses, the ferns, the reeds – more plants grow down here than in some of Leaf's forests, and without any sunlight. Hell, the pool is warm even though the caves are cool! Something's heating the water up, maybe the stuff living inside of it. And like I said, your chakra system is a physical thing – a real, complex group of organs that interacts with every other body system in this crazy interplay that's somehow always an inch from failure but never fails. If something in this place messes with that chakra system, I'd bet you that it's something alive. Maybe the lichens, those look like they've been here a while."

"It's possible," Hazō agreed, as Noburi led him off the water. "But don't jump to conclusions. We don't know what the weirdness could be. What did you want to show me?"

"That," Noburi said, pointing to the stone ceiling above them.

Carved into a smooth patch of the stone was an intricately detailed portrait of a toad. No, a Toad – with an over-long smoking pipe and a haori and a tough-looking expression.

"Is that…"

Next to the detailed toad, there was a simple, stylized hexagonal ring. No, not quite a ring. It was broken at one point, where one line opened up as if in open jaws. An ouroboros.

"Yep."

Next to the ouroboros was an indentation in the otherwise smooth stone. A fist shaped indentation. Given its companions, Hazō could almost imagine it was some sort of weird, lumpy slug.

"Jiraiya's still beating us to the punch after all this time, huh?" Noburi asked, gazing up with Hazō at the marks on the low ceiling next to the pool.

"In the intermediary period prior to our departure on the extended research mission, I briefly investigated the Sannin's history to identify in which stage of their lives they would have delved such exotic places as these," Kei said, dropping down from her overwatch into the shelf with Hazō and Noburi.

"For several months in 1038, Sannin serially raided Hidden Rain. Despite Leaf forces generally approaching the country from the east, the Sannin frequently flanked Hidden Rain forces via the west. It was believed that they were transiting through Wind Country, who in the Second World War was an enemy of Fire's. Sand took great efforts to catch them and their three newly-won summoning scrolls, but failed to even sight them. The Sannin simply did not return to Leaf at all, having apparently found a 'mountain hideaway' to bivouac in between raids, with their attacks coordinated via jōnin commander and Monkey Summoner Sarutobi Hiruzen.

"That series of raids in Rain ended after they confronted Hanzō of the Salamander at the Ryūketsu Mudpit. He was reportedly impressed by, among other things, their stamina. Despite killing every single other Leaf ninja, he spared them so long as they bore the title of the Legendary Three, let all know that it was Hanzō who let them live, and left Rain in peace forevermore."

"Their stamina, huh?" Noburi said. "Orochimaru did say that the pool made ninjutsu cost less chakra…"

"Why did he let them live, instead taking their scrolls for Rain?" Hazō asked.

"Leaf historians claim that the Sannin in fact fought Hanzō to a draw," Kei said. "This contradicts every statement the Sannin have personally made – acknowledging that they had only Hanzō's mercy to thank for their lives. Mist historians are no better, suggesting that Hanzō aimed to secure an alliance with Leaf by leaving the Sannin as a thorn in Mist's side. I suspect that none but the Sannin know for certain."

"Huh, so the pool's effect was the key thing that let them survive the battle, then," Hazō said.

"Yeah, but that's not enough, is it?" Noburi asked. "They should have died. Imagine it. Your every trick, your every advantage, always just barely enough to stay alive while your companions die one-by-one around you. Then, it turns out you didn't have enough anyway, because the guy you're fighting is the baddest bastard since Hashirama and Madara. Except, he lets you live for some reason – something you'd never do to any enemy you respect – and he sends you off with a new title and a message to stay off his lawn.

"I wonder how the Sannin felt about their title? They got it from their greatest defeat, but people only know it because of their greatest achievements. Maybe that's why Hanzō did it. He knew they would do amazing things, and wanted every one of their accomplishments to have the footnote: '...but Hanzō is still stronger.' I guess they ended up owning the name anyway and probably outliving him."

"With my wholly superficial insight into Jiraiya's psyche," Kei said, "I presume he detested having the specter of someone stronger than him perpetually at his shoulder. I expect he ultimately repressed any thoughts of Hanzō and, yes, simply made the title his own."

"Regardless," Hazō said, yanking his thoughts away from the past. "We can't camp out here indefinitely, doing raids from this one cave in Wind Country. We need to take the effect with us when we go. I think the Sannin probably did the same themselves. It would help explain some of their insane missions over the years."

"There are more," Kei said, ignoring Hazō's words as she stared at the ceiling, making Hazō's and Noburi's gaze follow.

Faded and half-covered by layers of lichens, there were carvings above the ones made by the Sannin. One was a simple name, 'Tsuki'. Another was a crest featuring some sort of tubular flower. A pine flower?

(Hazō missed Ino's absentminded rambles about floristry. He wished he'd listened more. It was her birthday today, wasn't it?)

The last, highest and barely visible, had a square containing some scratches. If it was a character, it had long since faded out of legibility.

Hazō shook his head. "We're far from the first to discover this place. We might be the last, unless we stop Pain from coming back, and that involves making progress, not ruminating on the past. We need chakra to research and train, so we need to imitate the water's effect, and for that, we need to make the cave safe enough to study it."

"Kagome's been working on the perimeters for like an hour now," Noburi said. "I'm pretty sure he won't stop until this place is safer than Leaf itself… which I'm realizing means very little for us right now."

"We haven't killed the chakravores yet," Hazō said. "We shouldn't study the pool until we exterminate them. If the effect on our chakra system takes a while to get used to, we could get caught with our pants down."

"I, for one, intend to put my pants back on after my dip in the pool," Noburi said.

"You know what I meant," Hazō said. "We should clear the tunnels exiting from the grotto until we've cleared the whole cave system."

"Potential exit tunnels number over two dozen," Kei said. "Only a subset of which are sufficiently wide for a human to explore."

"Fine, we clear whichever tunnels we can and stuff the rest with alternating layers of stone and explosives," Hazō said. "We'll need a couple days to research the water effect, so it's worth spending a couple days to make sure we don't get ambushed during our research."

"And if we encounter more branching points?" Noburi asked. "We have no clue how deep this goes, right?"

"We deal with it no matter how deep it goes," Hazou said. "Orochimaru's notes made it sound like he killed hundreds of beasts. We should assume they replenished, and we shouldn't relax until we've killed them again. Let's grab the others and prepare to explore the tunnels."

o-o-o​

Kagome had balked at relying entirely on an unmanned perimeter to secure the team's exit route in the event of disaster, given the occasional creature getting blown up by the directional explosives stuffed into the grotto's every mouth. Mari, already injured, had volunteered to stay behind with Kagome to keep him safe and guard the exits.

Despite the over-paranoid sealmaster's absence, the forward team progressed slowly. Sometimes, they could pump a tunnel with mist and clear it in barely ten minutes. Other times, it took over an hour for a tunnel to fully mist up, and exploring deeper revealed smaller cisterns of water, fed by invisible trickling streams from the main pool, with three or five or a dozen more narrow tunnels branching out.

It had only been a couple hours when Yuno called out. "My chakra's disappearing!"

The team dropped into combat stances and flashed their Daybright Lanterns around the tunnel's walls, only to see no hint of ominous floating otters.

"Noburi!" Hazō called out.

Noburi closed his eyes. "There!" he said, pointing at craggy rock at a turn in the tunnel ahead of them.

Kei immediately threw a tagged kunai at the rock. The low-power explosion made all their ears ring and caused one of the floating chakravores to zip out of a jagged nook and away down the tunnel.

Before Hazō could dash after it, Tenten's shuriken sheared through its midsection and dropped it to the ground in two pieces.

"Yuno, how are your reserves?" Hazō asked after a pause long enough to confirm that nothing else was attacking them.

Yuno hesitated. "...fine. It only took a little before I noticed."

"Noburi, are there any more of them?"

Noburi had his eyes closed, still sensing through the thin mist around them.

"Nope," he said. "I don't sense any more of them around."

"Good," Hazō said. "Every dead chakravore is progress. Can you refill Yuno so we can keep moving?"

o-o-o​

Yuno crouched, touching the stone beneath her feet.

"Yuno?" Hazō asked.

"Burrowers," she said in reply. "The stone here is misshapen, see?"

Hazō shined a Daybright Lantern on the rough stone. He didn't see.

"There's a beast that can move through stone," she said. "It's not big, probably smaller than a person, but it surfaced somewhere here-," she pointed at a spot on the floor, "-moved along-," she traced a line across the floor which coincided with a natural-looking gash in the ground, "-and went back under here." She pointed down to the spot she'd stopped to inspect.

"I see," Hazō said. "Okay, we need to keep an eye on the walls too, then. Actually, this is important. Let's double back and warn Kagome-sensei about this. He'll want to update his trap array to account for burrowers.

o-o-o​

"Some creatures ahead," Noburi whispered. "Maybe some Water Element ability? The mist feels a bit too thin to drain through, so I'm popping another misterator."

He pulled the seal from his pouch and pointed it forward, and Hazō suppressed a minor wince. They'd been burning through seals rapidly as they explored the cave, and without the clan's junior sealmasters, even weak seals would need to be replaced by himself and Kagome. Every expended misterator meant five more minutes of scribing for him (though Kagome had it worse, still replenishing the team's skywalkers after their airborne journeys).

Except, the seal didn't activate.

Noburi frowned and handed the seal to Hazō. No visible water damage, but the paper didn't feel dry. Had the mist ruined the seal in the pause between Noburi pulling it out of his seal pouch and activating it?

Noburi had already popped another misterator and advanced down the tunnels. Hazō heard the telltale thumps of the heavily-spined rabbits being drained to death.

Hazō tucked the seal away for further study, cursing that his five minute expenditure had probably grown into hours. Oh well. It was worth spending time to keep his team safe.

o-o-o​

Hazō saw Noburi stop short as he climbed a short ledge. Hazou vaulted up the rising tunnel segment. He stopped just as quickly.

In front of him, a dozen small creatures looked back at him with big, white eyes that reflected his Daybright Lantern. The savaged remains of an otter lay in their midst, red blood and bits spread across the floor and staining the creatures' feet. The creatures looked like dogs, if dogs were white, hairless, six-legged, and half as big with twice as many teeth.

Hazō cautiously stepped forward to make room for the rest of the team to crest the ledge behind him. He heard the sound of callus against metal as Kei prepared to throw a kunai.

"Noburi?" Hazō asked in a whisper.

"Right," Noburi said, reaching for another misterator and unleashing the cone at the creatures.

They started to hum. Hazō had been expecting a growl, but instead they made a low, constant buzzing sound as they started to pace towards the human group.

"Noburi!?" Hazō whispered more insistently.

"They're not there!" Noburi whispered back. "I mean, I'm trying to pull their chakra but they disappear from my senses when I do!"

Hazō made a decision in a split second. "Attack!"

Tenten's shuriken split the skull of one of the beasts an instant later.

A six-legged creature threw itself through the stream of mist at Noburi, as he leapt sideways towards a wall, conjuring his Water Whip from his barrel and striking it out of the air. Yuno moved as he did, lightning suddenly sparkling around her as she activated Strength of the Storm, and Satsuko tore off two of the creature's left-sided legs, sending it to the ground in a whimpering wail. Two more of the white beasts bounded around Yuno, bouncing off the wall to lunge jaws-first at Noburi. He caught one's bite against his Water Whip, but the other latched onto his arm.

Hazō braced himself for the sickening crunch, but Noburi moved almost faster than Hazō could track, twisting around on his Rocket Boots and slamming the creature into the wall before it could shear his arm off. As the beast dropped to the ground, the soft pop of Kei's Wind-boosted kunai took it through the gut.

The advancing beasts were on Hazō too quickly for him to activate his Force Claw seals. He ducked, dodged, and struck back as the beasts assaulted him from all sides. They outsped him on foot, but his Rocket Boots kept him just ahead as he circled the low cave.

Hazō flip-kicked another six-legged monstrosity away him and in his upside-down instant, activated his Force Claws. He landed and immediately pulsed his Rocket Boots towards the beast he'd kicked away. A macerator shot from his palm slammed it against the wall again, then a stab-swipe from his seal-bladed knuckles spilled its organs across the floor.

Hazō turned. Noburi had wrapped himself in a dense mantle of water to match Yuno's cloak of lightning, but the beasts bore down on them from all sides. Tenten and Kei picked off a pair in an instant, and Yuno cleaved another in half, but there were so many, and another lupine creature leapt for Noburi's leg, leaving a deep scratch.

Hazō raced across the room to his brother's aid, but the horde wouldn't leave him alone. A pair of creatures chased him, and Hazō decided not to leave his back open. He spun around again, another impossible maneuver made possible by his Rocket Boots, and tore his Force Claw right through a pouncing creature's face. He roundhouse kicked the other, then cut it nearly in half from above.

He turned back towards Noburi, but the battle was over. The beasts were running or limping deeper into the cave, and Kei and Tenten were picking off the stragglers one by one with their weapons.

Once they'd killed the injured beasts and the heartbeat in their ears had settled, Noburi spoke. "Yeah, good idea to clear them all out, Hazō. Let's not get jumped by a dozen of those while we're not expecting combat."

"Are you okay, Noburi?" Hazō asked.

"Yeah, I'm good," he said. "Just some scratches. I'll disinfect and bandage myself up, and I'll be good to go. Anyone need a chakra top-up first?"

o-o-o​

"Chakra falling," Tenten whispered, breaking the cave's silence.

Hazō turned to Noburi, but he was already focusing.

"Somewhere ahead, not sure where," he said after an instant in which they all held still despite their combat instincts telling them to move.

"Forward!" Hazō called out.

They raced down the hallway, pulsing chakra through their Rocket Boots to control their acceleration down a slope, only to find four chakravores facing them down.

Hazō opened his mouth to call an attack, but two chakravores immediately fell to the teams' artillery while Yuno raced ahead of him and sliced another in half. The last fled down the hallway, and Hazō resisted the urge to pursue.

"That was a lot of them," he said, speaking quickly. "Are we good to pursue? We're deep in the cave now, so we might find a lot of them."

Nods went around.

"Tenten, how much chakra are you down?"

She held up four fingers, then lowered one.

"A quarter down? Noburi, fill her up then let's go."

They waited a tense moment, combat energy making them bounce as Noburi measured out water and handed it to Tenten, then they were off.

The tunnel bent upwards again and opened into another small, water-filled cistern.

It was packed with chakravores. Hazō spotted two dozen at a glance, then noticed more floating in the water – tiny discolored otters locomoting in clutches on the water with yellowish tendrils growing from their backs.

The instant he entered the room, he felt the touch of the chakravores. It felt just like Candoru had described, like cold, slimy fingers were grasping around his soul and trying to yank it out of him.

Except, those fingers were awfully weak. Hazō didn't close his eyes, but he focused inwards and stabilized his chakra. He couldn't feel how they were draining him, but he could tell when the drain suddenly slowed. Compared to the onslaught of reintegrating chakra from a shadow clone, even compared to Noburi's drain… the chakravores were weak.

But their drain hadn't completely stopped, and with over forty in the room, who knew how long he'd hold out.

"I can't pull chakra back out of them!" Noburi called out.

"Kill them all!" Hazō replied, racing down the side of the room. Tenten and Kei sniped the floating otters as Yuno dashed along the walls, slashing any chakravores in reach. Hazō had a different target in mind.

Hazō raced across the cistern's surface, deactivating his Force Claws and reaching into his seal pouch for another tool. He held up his hand to a clutch of eight of the chakravore younglings and blew them to bits with a directional explosive.

Unlike most of the beasts down here, the chakravores couldn't dodge. Their speed was pitiful by ninja standards, so they died as quickly as the team could attack them. Hazō dashed across the water to another clutch of chakravore younglings and killed ten more with twin cones of force and fire in each palm.

He looked for another target, only for his foot to… slip? He fell into the water and his hands snapped out to catch himself. His hands stayed above the surface by chakra repulsion while his lower body slipped underwater and he pushed away with enhanced strength, leaping back out of the water and onto his feet – only for his waterwalking to do nothing at all. His feet plunged back through the surface.

Hazō flutter-kicked, old reflexes from Mist's swimming lessons coming back to him as he grabbed the surface of the water again with his hands to stay up. The chakravores had somehow eaten the chakra repulsion from his feet, limiting his mobility. They'd probably take away his hands too, soon.

The water had ruined his Rocket Boots, so he needed another way out of the water. He could substitute a teammate into the water, but then they'd have the same problem as him. His seal pouch had been ruined by submersion, his jutsu wouldn't help…

Damn it, Mist had trained him. He could fight in the water if he needed to.

Three powerful chakra-enhanced strokes took him to a side of the small cistern. He grabbed onto one of the chakravore young and yanked it towards him, grabbing its head with his other hand and tearing its head off. He discarded its body immediately and moved onto the next, killing them one by one until he finally felt the traction return to his feet.

His focus had slipped, costing him more chakra, but he returned to the water's surface just in time to hear the splash of a body hitting the water behind him.

"Tenten!" Kei cried out.

Of course. He and Kei had the mental and spiritual fortitude to resist the chakravores' drain, and Noburi had too much chakra for the beasts to take him out of commission, but Tenten had neither the reserves nor the Gōketsu special training to resist the drain of a dozen chakravores.

All the adult chakravores had emerged from the pool and floated away from the walls, doing nothing… or rather, trying to drain the team's chakra as hard as they could. The team had cut down the beasts' numbers down to less than a dozen, but Yuno looked weakened.

Hazō ate his words an instant later as Yuno leaped across the cistern to slash a particularly large otter in half, as Kei and Tenten continued to snipe the chakravores down. There were only four more adult ones that he could see.

Yuno landed on the opposite wall and slipped, her feet not finding traction where she expected it and the normally combat-composed jōnin flailed for a moment as she plummeted towards the water.

When she landed, she didn't struggle. She sank.

Hazō didn't even have time to contribute as Kei and Noburi sniped down the last few adults, then dove into the water for their respective lovers. Hazō quickly killed the remaining younglings.

Noburi was the first to emerge with Yuno, who he quickly dragged to the tunnel they'd entered through. Kei followed a moment later, hoisting Tenten's body with desperate strength. She didn't have to ask Noburi to pick which one to save – Noburi had already set Yuno to coughing out water as Kei roughly set Tenten down, and Noburi quickly turned her over and slapped her back to get the water out of her lungs.

After tiny sips of chakra water to return their consciousness and a few tense minutes of tending to them, in which Hazō somehow ended up being overwatch while Kei minded Tenten like a hawk, Noburi finally spoke.

"Good news, neither of you suffered any injury from the drowning," he said. "It was only like five seconds for you, Tenten, and less for you, Yuno. It's your chakra coils that are the issue. Tenten, your coils just have some light burns, like some kind of minor training injury that'll be better tomorrow… but Yuno, how hard did you push yourself there? Your coils are totally burnt out! If they'd kept draining you, you would have died!"

"I'm fine, my honeybee," Yuno said weakly. "I needed to kill them, and I killed them."

"With the chakravores dead and their nest destroyed, do we need to worry about anything else down here?" Hazō asked, not looking away from the tunnel he needed to watch. "Apart from the little things that your chakra drain couldn't affect, everything else should drop instantly, right?"

"Excepting any creature that attacks at range, the as-yet-unknown burrowers that could still ambush us, any chakravores that happened to be hunting, or any other beast immune to drain, a remarkably useful capability with the chakravores running rampant," Kei said.

"We should get out of here," Noburi said. "I should treat both of them, but I don't want to do it here."

"I can still fight," Tenten said quietly, pushing herself up to her elbows, then making her way to her feet. Kei took a step as if to help her up, but stopped abruptly.

"It's probably fine. You should-" Noburi paused as Tenten coughed. "You should ideally minimize chakra use, but that's not a big deal right now. It'll hurt, but you're fully combat capable. Yuno, on the other hand, you should stay back and away while we get out of here."

"Right, exfiltration plans," Hazō said. "Here's what I think we should do…"

---

Hazō currently has 88 chakra points, Kei has 106, Noburi has 530, and Yuno and Tenten have 1 each. Yuno has a Mild, Medium, and Severe Consequence, and Tenten has a Mild Consequence. With the narrow tunnels, Hazō would estimate that they're a couple minutes from the Kagome-fortified pool at a reckless dash, or fifteen minutes at a cautious pace. The exit route is not fully clear (passes through an open space attached to uncleared tunnels). Everyone gains 2 FP for two combat victories.

I will probably not provide rolls for this chapter's combats. No unstagnations have yet happened.

Hazō used the chakrascope and MS8 seals on the crystals from this cave. He has acquired some samples, but to the best of his observations, they seem like ordinary rocks. Seals do not burn up in this cave.

Apart from finishing the day of September 23 (which had a full day's XP award in Chapter 674), this update covers two additional days of exploring the cave system. Both combats above happened on the last day of the update. The team estimates that they have explored around 70% of the parts of the cave that are explorable by humans. They have probably killed less than 70% of the chakra beasts, since some beasts fled deeper into the caves when the team approached them, but the total killed is still easily in the middle-hundreds range.

XP Award: 10 + 2 (brevity) XP

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Sep 7, 2024 at 1:00 PM .

 

[eaglejarl]

Chapter 677: Evac, Uplift Style​

"Noburi, rebalance chakra across the team. Yuno gets enough to defend herself, the rest of us have enough to fight. Do it now."

Noburi was already slinging the barrel off his back as the others gathered around.

"We're going back to camp and we're not stopping," Hazō said. "Not for anything. If we encounter resistance, blow through it and keep moving. Noburi, you and I will be well out in front to clear the way. Kei, Tenten, you're ranged support, so hang back. Yuno, defend yourself but do not act aggressively. Avoid combat if at all possible. Noburi, is she going to be injured further if she uses chakra?"

"It's definitely not ideal," Noburi said. "Honestly, I would prefer if she wasn't even on her feet but that's not an option right now. Honey, I need you to avoid chakra use as much as possible. Minimal chakra boost, no jutsu, okay? The more chakra you use, the worse you'll damage your coils and the longer it will take to heal."

"Am I in danger of permanent damage?" Yuno asked, eyes wide.

"I don't think so, but coil damage is nothing to screw around with. Be careful, okay?" He waited for her to nod and then turned to the other walking wounded. "Tenten, your injuries are far more mild. Chakra boost shouldn't be a problem for you and even jutsu are probably okay as long as you don't go too hard. Mostly, you need to sleep."

The silent woman nodded, her face even more sober than usual.

"How far do you figure it is back to camp?" Hazō asked, looking at Kei. "A couple of minutes if we run, maybe fifteen if we're cautious?"

"Fifteen is too slow," Noburi said. "We need—" He stopped talking as Hazō gave him a 'duh' look.

"In terms of steps, just over a mile. Perhaps a mile and a half if we consider elevation change. So, yes. Perhaps two minutes at a run. My concern is the large cavern we must traverse. There were tunnels attached to it that we have not yet cleared. It is possible that threats may have come up those tunnels after we passed."

Hazō nodded in acknowledgement then moved on to the next item. "Noburi, Kei, give me a seal loadout. Mine were ruined in the water. After that, activate your skywalkers. If we aren't touching the ground then hopefully anything that hunts by vibration won't spot us." He took the cup from Noburi and drained it, feeling the chakra flow back into him.

"Might light us up to the chakravores," Noburi noted, handing over the requested packet of seals.

"Stealth has never been a primary operational method for Team Uplift," Kei noted. "We have always tended to favor...I believe the phrase is 'shock and awe'?"

"Fair point. Water Element: Water Whip." His signature weapon appeared in his hand; the jutsu lasted only half a minute but it was a positive action that he could take. "Let's roll."

Hazō caught his arm. "Hang on," he said. "Got an idea."

o-o-o-o​

Spoiler: dice

The chakravores and magmaspines have a symbiotic relationship based on the fact that the chakravores eat chakra, making them excellent at disabling prey, and the magmaspines eat flesh but aren't too picky about whether it's alive or dead. The magmaspines travel through the rock, their innate 'jutsu' causing the rock to momentarily turn molten and flow around them before immediately cooling again. This allows them to easily create ambush spots in the stone where they and their co-conspirators can hide before dropping on an enemy. For simplicity, all of the critters of a given type have the same stats. Let's roll a few things up:

• Chakravores
  • Number appearing, 1d10+3 = 8
  • Alertness: 1d??+20 = ??
  • Athletics: 1d??+20 = ??
  • Attack strength: 5d??+30 = ??
• Magmaspines
  • Number appearing, 1d6+1 = 7. Yowch.
  • Alertness: 3d??+30 = ??
  • Athletics: 5d??+20 = ??
  • Attack strength: 8d??+20 = ??

Hazō and Noburi are 2 zones in advance of the rest of everyone.

Initiative:

• ...huh. Actually, never mind.

BOOM!

Running steps...

BOOM!

Running steps...

BOOM!

"Look out!"

"Earth Element: Multiple Earth Wall!"

Running steps...

BOOM!

"Jeeek!" came the scream of something nonhuman.

The sound of a Banshee Fucker blasted through the bones of the earth, turning animal ears to jelly and shaking the stone.

Running steps...

Pause.

"I don't see anything," Noburi said, crouching beside Hazō at the entrance to the enormous cavern that stood between them and safety. He had to wait until after Hazō deactivated the Banshee Fucker, and then wait a few seconds more. Even with Banshee Slayers active, not all the noise from the Fucker was suppressed. It left a persistent ringing in the ears for a short time after it was deactivated.

Hazō grunted and tapped the floor thoughtfully with the end of the steel dowel that he was using to keep the Banshee Fucker out in front of himself while they ran. He studied the cavern, looking for any trace of movement or any potential lairing points for bats or other cave dwellers.

"Still," Noburi continued. "We are Team Uplift."

Hazō nodded. "That is an excellent point."

BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM[implosion noise]BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM[implosion noise]BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM[implosion noise]BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM[implosion noise][implosion noise][implosion noise]BOOMBOOM[implosion noise][implosion noise]BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM[implosion noise][implosion noise]BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM!!!!

[pain-inducing scream of the Banshee Fucker]

Running steps...

BOOM!

Running steps...

BOOM!

Tap on the shoulder followed by pointing finger.

BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM[implosion noise]!!!

Running steps...

"Kagome-sensei! It's us! We're coming in hot, and we've got wounded!"

o-o-o-o​

"Ohhhhh," Mari moaned, rising up out of the water and slicking her hair back. The expression on her face was that of a woman who had simultaneously experienced the scent of lavender, the taste of chocolate, and the feel of mind-shattering sex with a considerate partner who remembered to bring scented candles and afterwards told you that you were the best they had ever had.

"I'm taking that to mean 'no issues with the water'?" Hazō asked, amused.

"Nope. Feels glorious. Ahhhh..." She sank back in, floating on her back while making tiny little paddling motions with her fingertips that slowly turned her and pushed her away from the shore.

Tenten and Kei were already sliding into the warm embrace of the pool. Kei, Hazō noticed, was wearing the same figure-hugging navy swimsuit from so long ago, except now she felt no need to wrap her arms nervously around herself as she entered the water.

"The water is indeed quite pleasant," Kei said, her face relaxing as she floated in the heat. She sounded surprised. "Hazō, Noburi, you should join us."

"I'm going to check on Yuno again," Noburi said, glancing behind himself to where Yuno slept. "I'll be along later."

"I'll go with you," Hazō said, falling in next to his brother. "I wanted to ask you about something."

"Shoot."

"Could you teach me some of the basics of medical ninjutsu? Specifically about chakra systems. I think I may need to know it for some of the runes I want to make."

Noburi digested that. "Hang on."

He knelt at Yuno's bedroll. His wife's injuries were almost entirely internal; there was a bruise on her upper arm, a scrape on her knee, and her beautiful face had faint lines of pain even in her sleep, but otherwise all of the damage was unavailable to the eye.

The extensive damage.

"How is she?"

"A little better," Noburi said quietly. "I gave her a sleep draught before I worked on her. It kept her out most of the night, but I'm not sure how much actual rest she got. She was moving around and muttering all night, probably with bad dreams." He carefully brushed an errant strand of hair away from the sleeping woman's nose, checked that the blankets were properly arranged, and stood up.

He waited until he and Hazō were a short distance away, far enough that quiet voices were unlikely to disturb Yuno, then settled down. Hazō sank down next to him, sitting cross-legged on the hard stone.

"You want to become a medic?" Noburi asked.

Hazō shook his head, paused, and then wobbled a hand back and forth. "Maybe? I at least want to learn enough about chakra systems to figure out exactly what the pool is doing, and how I can reproduce it with a rune."

Noburi pondered that.

"Something wrong?" Hazō asked.

"My brain is telling my heart to shut up and my heart doesn't like it," Noburi said. "I'll be honest, Hazō...intellectually, having another medic on the team would be a great idea and anything that contributes to your rune research is a positive thing."

"But...?"

"But medic has always been my thing. You already fight well, and you're a summoner, and a sealmaster, and a runemaster. If you become a medic too then...what am I? Am I just the barrel boy again?" He held up a hand to cut Hazō off. "I know, it's stupid. Intellectually, I know that I'm more than that to you and the rest of the team. I know that even if you become a medic, I will still be able to make a contribution. Still..." He gestured towards where a group of Hazō's Shadow Clones sat scribing seals and reading various research materials.

"You and the rest of the team, the ones who got Shadow Clone, you learn so fast because you have so many copies of yourself to learn in parallel. I feel like I'm running as fast as I can and you're still shooting past me, leaving me in the dust. If you start learning medicine, you'll pass me by in this too. Then what?"

"Noburi..." He trailed off, thinking carefully. "Thank you for telling me that. I'm grateful that you shared it with me instead of keeping it bottled up until it became a problem. It must have been difficult to say."

Noburi snorted. "Hazō, how many times have we had some variation on this conversation? You took the lead role in the team and I learned to accept that. We went where you said and did what you wanted. We became a clan and I was okay following Jiraiya because he's Jiraiya...and then he died and you became Clan Lord. I've gotten used to being the second, maybe third fiddle on this team, but I've always felt like I had something unique to contribute." He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "That said, it doesn't matter. Teaching you this is the right move so I'll do it. I want something from you, though."

Hazō eyed him carefully. "What's that?"

"I want you to teach me Shadow Clone."

---

Author's Note:

@Paperclipped is going to be irked with me for not using the combat stuff he put together, and @Velorien is likely to have some choice words about me coming up with tactics instead of letting the players figure it out. Sorry, guys; I had trouble focusing enough to write and by the time it started coming together it was too late to start a fight scene. Plus, whenever I tried to run a simulationist model of the situation, it kept coming up with 'no fight'—either because the team would stay true to the Kagome-style Universal Problem-Solving Technique school of thought, or because they would simply run through any ambush instead of staying to fight. They were trying to evac, not clear the area, and given the tools available I didn't see much chance of a meaningful fight under those conditions.

The one thing I wasn't sure of was whether or not the roof could endure this treatment. I was dubious about it but felt that, given my ignorance, I could justify either outcome. This solution was funnier and easier to write so I let it tip the scales this direction, although Hazō needed to reinforce the tunnel at one point with a quick MEW. Please do not take this as assurance that every part of the cave system can endure this treatment, or that Hazō will always be quick enough to avert being crushed under hectotons (kilotons? haven't done the math) of rock.

XP AWARD: 3

Brevity XP: 1

"GM had fun" XP: 1

• I thought the running and blowing shit up scene was funny

It is now the day after Yuno was injured, about 4pm. Mild Consequences have cleared. The plan called for Noburi/Kei/Hazō/Tenten to continue clearing the tunnels but I am stopping before that point for obvious reasons. (i.e. there should definitely be some rolls involved)

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Wednesday, Sep 11, 2024 at 7:00 AM .

 

[Velorien]

Chapter 678: Nobody's Clone​

Noburi snorted. "Hazō, how many times have we had some variation on this conversation? You took the lead role in the team and I learned to accept that. We went where you said and did what you wanted. We became a clan and I was okay following Jiraiya because he's Jiraiya...and then he died and you became Clan Lord. I've gotten used to being the second, maybe third fiddle on this team, but I've always felt like I had something unique to contribute." He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "That said, it doesn't matter. Teaching you this is the right move so I'll do it. I want something from you, though."

Hazō eyed him carefully. "What's that?"

"I want you to teach me Shadow Clone."

Hazō couldn't deny (though he also didn't want to admit) that the prospect made him nervous. In the shinobi world, every path to power worthy of the name came with dire warnings about the terrible things that happened to over-ambitious beginners or even careless masters who made the wrong mistake just once. Kagome-sensei was the living embodiment of those warnings, but in his time, Hazō had also been lectured about the horrific, dimension-spanning consequences of a failed summoning (or worse, reverse-summoning) and the gruesome fates in store for power-hungry technique-modifying tadpoles who didn't have the common sense the Sage gave a tree slug. Soon, he'd add another set to his collection from Noburi and the Hidden Leaf medical tradition. Hazō suspected that he was well on his way to becoming the most admonished ninja in history, if not there already. (He was also well overdue some grim, melodramatic rants about the perils of runecrafting, but fortunately, Kei was picking up the slack until he got round to fulfilling his responsibilities as founder and came up with some.)

The Shadow Clone Technique was no exception. Certainly, the Academy made sure that all would-be ninja were clear on the mutilation or death that awaited a student who was lackadaisical in their ninjutsu studies (it was not the harshest set of dire warnings, that being kunai safety years before, but it was certainly the longest), but the Shadow Clone Technique went so far beyond the norm for self-harm potential, with so many ways to cripple or kill the user when perfectly executed, that it merited a lecture series of its own.

Hazō had chosen to take the risk of learning it and using it every day, and he stood by that choice because WHOOSH was more than worth it. He'd encouraged his loved ones to learn it, one after another, in the knowledge that they almost never rejected his recommendations (even as they spoke, Noburi was reaffirming Hazō's authority as leader), and unilaterally inflicted that risk on them as well. Years later, understanding their fragility, their mortality, as he never had back then, and with the comfortable excuse that WHOOSH was currently impractical and the decision could be put off, could he really inflict the risk again, on someone for whom it was orders of magnitude greater?

He looked at Noburi, seeking answers that nobody else could find for him. He looked at his brother's expression of implacable resolve, so rare on the easygoing youth's face. But in that same expression, he saw Akane, the ultimate reminder of what would happen if he failed his family.

He also heard her answer, the words he already knew she'd say because she was the one who'd taught him the lesson to begin with.

We have our own lives and our own agency. Trusting you with our training is our choice too, and if you trust us, then you need to trust that we can choose differently if we want to. Trust that we're adults who can make our own choices, and let us pay the price for that freedom if a price has to be paid.

He also knew that the Akane in his heart was speaking from experience. The last time she suppressed her own feelings and let somebody else make her choices for her, it broke her. Hazō still believed that it was the final reason for her death, not some probably-Rock assassin who his girlfriend at the height of her power could have shattered with a single fist.

"You've got it," Hazō said. "I always meant to teach you as soon as you'd studied its interaction with the Vampiric Dew and proved it was safe, you know that. I won't pretend I'm not worried, quite a bit if I'm honest, but I'm not going to stall or try to talk you out of it. At the end of the day, you're the rising star of- the medical world–"

Noburi raised an eyebrow at the hasty swerve, but didn't interrupt.

"–and I absolutely trust you to know when it's safe for you to learn. If you tell me you need to learn it now, as part of that research, then I trust that you know the risks and that you can handle them.

"Or," Hazō added, not quite managing to keep the hope from his voice, "maybe you're asking because you've already researched the interactions and I just didn't notice you doing it? Because if that's the case, I salute your diligence."

"Yeah, I wish it was that easy," Noburi said. "Maybe if I was back in Leaf with a Bloodline Limit expert who also knew the technique, like Tsunade or Dr Yakushi."

"Wait, what?" Hazō interrupted. "You'd still trust that man with your insides?"

"What?" Noburi asked. "You think I'd turn my back on him just because he's apparently Orochimaru's right-hand snake? You, who rush to Orochimaru's side whenever you have a new shiny to bribe him with?"

Noburi shook his head. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not happy. But I see him at the hospital every now and then, and he's the same guy. He jokes around, he answers questions and gives good advice, he talks about what a shame it is he can't spare the time to do research together… And having studied with Tsunade, I kinda get it now. Don't get me wrong, Orochimaru's an irredeemable monster and letting him into your life the way you do is the stuff of the cautionary tales your mum should have told you as a kid. But I get it. If you're passionate enough about medicine, making one of the Three your full-time sensei isn't just a temptation. It's an order from your heart and mind. Maybe I'm not passionate enough about medicine, because I can't make the sacrifices Dr Yakushi must have made, and I don't know what he does to live with himself after helping Orochimaru be Orochimaru day after day, but having been where he is for a couple of months and then having to stop… I dunno, I guess it humanises him, sort of."

He paused, but right as Hazō was about to move the conversation on, he spoke again.

"It's been on my mind. Before too, a bit, but especially since. I can't be evil to reach for those heights. Vivisection, human experimentation, all that stuff… it must teach you so much, but it's just not in me. People are too real to me. I try to see who they are, to connect with them–it's like an instinct. I'd kill myself if I tried to go the Orochimaru route. I don't mean like cut my throat or anything. I mean I'd die inside, bit by bit, and I don't think it would even take very long.

"But I can't go the Tsunade route either. I can't take humanity and put it where my heart's supposed to be, and act like everything that's not the Big Cause, or obviously a piece of the Big Cause, straight up doesn't exist. My bonds with people are what keep me going, and besides"–he glanced aside, at Yuno's bedroll–"I have responsibilities.

"But to justify that to myself, how I'm refusing to take these routes right in front of me that have been proved to lead to the place I need to go, how I'm refusing to make the sacrifices that need to be made, I have to be better. Better than I am. Good enough to make my own route that's just as good as either of theirs.

"And I'm not. Studying with Tsunade, reaching special jōnin–I ought to be celebrating, but at the same time all it did is show me how much I still don't know. How useless I am at the heights that other medics aren't already handling. Right now, part of me is excited to do the interaction research–put what I learned from Tsunade to work on a level I haven't done before, leave my own mark–but a little part of me is scared that I'll find out I'm still not good enough. Still nowhere near the stuff Tsunade can do blindfolded with both hands tied behind her back. Heck, the stuff she can do without breakfast. Oh, and there's the realistic possibility of killing myself. Don't get me wrong, I will be taking every imaginable precaution, but Tsunade always says there's no such thing as enough precautions. There will always be a patient you can't save.

"And let's not forget," Noburi finished, "I'm not in Leaf. All the people and resources I was counting on for when we got here? Erased. Gone for good. No hospital, no tools, no senior medics, no library. Just me."

The silence was cold, interrupted only by the half of the team that was cheerfully splashing around in the far half of the pool with no sense of timing.

"So let me make sure I understand correctly," Hazō said after gathering his thoughts, "practical obstacles aside, your main concern is that you're still only a special jōnin at seventeen, and not quite as good as the ancient living gods of medicine whose brains are bursting with rare texts and forbidden lore and the results of forty years' worth of research and, in at least one case, crazy self-modifications that only a tunnel-visioned obsessive would ever risk. You're also worried that your bonds with the people around you, including arguably the world's greatest sealmaster and creative visionary, definitely the world's foremost research safety expert, a probably global expert in doing things to the brain even the Three don't know how to do, the princess of optimisation who had the resources of half a village and will again, a soon-to-be-resurrected S-rank sealmaster and ninjutsu creator, et cetera et cetera, will dramatically slow down your progress compared to the man who only has his one apprentice and the woman who only has a bunch of subordinates who at best learned from her to begin with. You're right, Noburi. You've already failed and might as well respec into a field where you have more growth potential while you're still young. Maybe Yuno can teach you underwater basketweaving. It's actually pretty fun."

Noburi tried to glower, but it didn't come naturally to him, and the bitterness fizzled out before it could gain momentum.

"Fine, make light of my deepest feelings, why don't you?"

"I will," Hazō promised, "every time they get between you and the happiness you deserve. Noburi, for real, you are not behind the curve. First, because there is no curve. Everybody grows at their own rate, and running into the right opportunities is as important as patiently accumulating experience day by day. The half of my power that doesn't come from seals I've researched comes from being in the right place at the right time and seizing the opportunity, like when I looked at that summoning scroll, or when I got to study the Great Seal, or when we won Asuma's competition and I got the Dog Scroll–which actually led to the other two, now I think of it. For as long as you're by my side, I promise you, you will regularly run into S-rank weird crazy shit–heck, look where we are right now–and you may not be a fifty-year-old demigod just yet, but I know you've got the talent and ambition to seize those opportunities just like they once did.

"Second, because you're going to take that curve that doesn't exist and break it in half. There's an up-front investment to be made for WHOOSH that might make you feel like you're stalling for a while, but my lists say the pay-off's a beast, and my lists never lie. Once that's done with and we secure you a stable chakra supply again–and we will–you'll be learning at a rate that would make those three-in-a-generation geniuses weep. You'll make your own path because you'll have to, because everybody else's path will be so slow it hurts. By the time you're fifty, you'll have cured death, aging, and stupidity, and Tsunade will be studying the textbooks you've written while Orochimaru will be extremely dead after you turned off his immortality with your little finger and then blew him away with the S-rank ninjutsu you never stopped learning because you're just that talented. The lists never lie."

"Didn't Ami once give you a post-interaction survey that mathematically proved you were doomed to marry her?"

"And I was doomed to marry her, more than once," Hazō fired back. "It's just that I always got out of it because I am also a genius who's busy breaking the curve in half, and I especially don't bow down to fate."

Noburi snorted. "I don't think that's how any of that works. But… thanks for the pep talk. I'd forgotten how good at those you were."

"Any time," Hazō said. "Now, before you dive into your research with renewed vigour, I will need your help for a few days figuring out the chakra water for my runecrafting. After that, your time is all yours. Team Uplift really hasn't been leveraging your potential as a researcher, but from now on, you can consider that your main job. Well, that and keeping us alive. I'd appreciate it if you didn't slack off on that just because medicine's more interesting."

"My Yuno might be able to compete with medicine in my heart," Noburi said thoughtfully. "No promises for the rest of you."

"If that's a hint that I should be trying to seduce you, dream on,"Hazō said with his best Iron Nerve straight face. "I like my girlfriends slim, long-haired, and female. I also enjoy not being murdered, though I can see where recent events might have confused you about that." He glanced back in the direction of the tunnel.

"One more thing," Hazō said, largely in order not to part on that note. "I might need to pick up some medical lore, at most some basic medical ninjutsu, for the sake of any biological runes I try to make. I like keeping my options open. Also, I might want to study biosealing one day." He gave the obligatory pause.

Noburi took a couple of seconds to react. "Oh, no," he said flatly. "Help, help, this insane lunatic is going to get himself and/or us killed in some particularly horrifying fashion, and maybe go evil and turn into mini-Orochimaru first. Woe is us. Hazō, what on earth are you thinking."

"Is that the best you've got?" Hazō demanded.

"Hey, it's been a long day and I'm tired. Take it from your doctor, pep talks are no substitute for collapsing into an exhausted mess for a few hours. And anyway, you've already heard what I've got to say on the subject, and coming up with new material takes time. Maybe we could have some kind of shortcut for when I'm not in the mood. You tell me you want to study biosealing, and I say BS, which is short for 'biosealing speech', and then you imagine a couple of minutes of Noburi screaming and ranting in your head."

"Genius," Hazō said in wonder as the possibilities began to flood into his head. "This could revolutionise the Clear Communication Technique. Screw the Nara. We'll be faster and better. They'll still be in the middle of using their hands while we'll already have finished using tongue alone."

Noburi was giving him a strange look, but it was too late. The medic had shown him how to take his technique to another level, and now Hazō urgently needed a practice partner. And what luck, Kei, the co-creator of the original, was right there, dripping wet from her relaxation time and surely open to a well-phrased invitation. In fact, he should see if Tenten was up for three-way experimentation, so as to demonstrate how well his technique would work with her preference for brevity.

-o-​

Would you like to roll a new character?

-o-​

You have received 1 + 1 (Brevity) + 1 (Fun-to-Write) XP. The rest of the day's XP will be awarded next update, for which there are already nefarious plans.

-o-​

Voting is closed.

 

[eaglejarl]

Chapter 679: Water Cannon​

Spoiler: Dice (spoilers for the action)

There are 2d6 + 2 chakravores: 9
There are 3d10 + 3 magmaspines: 22


The chakravores and magmaspines have a symbiotic relationship. The magmaspines spot enemies at long range with their tremor sense. When they start looking agitated, the chakravores know to go into combat mode. As soon as the prey comes close enough, the chakravores drain them unconscious and the magmaspines devour the body. When an enemy doesn't go down immediately and attempts to come to grips with the chakravores, the magmaspines will play defense, bringing them down with magma bolts from range and offering close-range tooth-and-claw combat if necessary. Granted, most things are unwilling to close with a magmaspine once it has its armor up.

The magmaspines will spot the team with their tremorsense once they come in range, and the vores will spot the team with their chakra senses shortly thereafter. Noburi's chakra sense only works when there is mist in the air and not even the Gōketsu have enough misterators on hand to pop one every zone as they hike across miles of tunnels, meaning they have no chance to detect the chakravores before they are in turn detected.

Initiative for the rest of the fight. Anyone targeted will detect their chakra being drained and can call it out to alert Noburi, who will pop mist on his turn so that he can start draining the chakravores back. (This will require localizing them.)

• Tenten: 52(*)
• Chakravore #0: ??
• Magmaspine #0: ??
• Magmaspine #1: ??
• Magmaspine #2: ??
• Chakravore #1: ??
• Magmaspine #3: ??
• Kei: 49
• Magmaspine #4: ??
• Magmaspine #5: ??
• Magmaspine #6: ??
• Chakravore #2: ??
• Magmaspine #7: ??
• Magmaspine #8: ??
• Chakravore #3: ??
• Magmaspine #9: ??
• Chakravore #4: ??
• Magmaspine #10: ??
• Chakravore #5: ??
• Magmaspine #11: ??
• Magmaspine #12: ??
• Chakravore #6: ??
• Magmaspine #13: ??
• Magmaspine #14: ??
• Magmaspine #15: ??
• Chakravore #7: ??
• Magmaspine #16: ??
• Chakravore #8: ??
• Magmaspine #17: ??
• Magmaspine #18: ??
• Magmaspine #19: ??
• Magmaspine #20: ??
• Magmaspine #21: ??
• Noburi: 40
• Hazō: 36

Notes:

• When determining initiative order, I had ties go to the protagonist(-adjacent) person because I'm feeling generous.
• Tenten does not in fact get to go until after the drain is noticed and called out.
• To save time, I'm not going to roll for the critters. Law of large numbers and all that.
• I'm rolling for who each critter goes after. On the first round it's a coin flip, 1 = Hazō, 2 = Kei.
• Targets resist the chakra drain at [REDACTED] and on a hit they are drained by [REDACTED]
• Hazō Reusable Rocket Boot (RRB) seals give a bonus of 1 + the sealmaster's Sealing AB at the time the seal was created. Hazō's AB changed when he swapped Sealing Scroll Acolyte for Disciple of the Beyond. I'm using the higher number (+9) here, on the assumption that he had some of the seals kicking around from before his soul-altering encounter with the Out.
• The battle starts with three zones: Tunnel Far, Tunnel Near, Cavern. The critters are in Cavern, Hazō and Kei are in Tunnel Near, the rest of the team is in Tunnel Far.
• Oh no. I forgot to apply the -1 Athletics penalty for PCJ. The horror. Oh dear, if only I had the patience and energy to do all the fiddly little bookkeeping it's possible that maybe it would have made a difference somewhere, maybe. Or maybe we should just get rid of that because it's a pain in the keister. The horror.
• Chakra boost caps (including ACE, and thank you to @Paperclipped for putting these together for me) are:
  • Tenten: 9
  • Noburi: 8
  • Hazō: 6
  • Kei: 6

Hazō and Kei have demonstrated the ability to resist the enemy's chakra drain better than the non-Shadow-Clone-users. As such, the abovementioned formation where they are one zone in the van with the rest of the team trailing behind.

Round 1:

CV0: ??
Hazō, Resist: ?? - 6 (dice) = ??
Hazō is drained for 25 CP!


Hazō calls out the drain and everyone gets to chakra boost and use their Reflexive Supplementals.

• Tenten: boost 9 (45 CP), ??
• Noburi: boost 8 (40 CP), Water Whip, activate Reusable Rocket Boots
• Hazō: boost 6 (30 CP), activate Reusable Rocket Boots
• Kei: boost 6 (30 CP), activate Reusable Rocket Boots

On their respective initiatives, all of the magmaspines burn their 2 supplementals activating their Magma Armor ability. Noting it here, once. They are at -2 on dodge for the round that the armor forms.

CV1: ??
Hazō, Resist: ?? + 0 = ??
Hazō is drained for 18 CP!

CV2: ??
Kei, Resist: ?? - 3 = ??
Kei is drained for 15 CP!

CV3: ??
Hazō, Resist: ?? - 3 = ??
Hazō is drained for 18 CP!

CV4: ??
Hazō, Resist: ?? + 0 = 42
Hazō is drained for 14 CP!

CV5: ??
Kei, Resist: ?? + 0 = ??
Kei is drained for 9 CP!

CV6: ??
Kei, Resist: ?? - 6: ??
Kei is drained for 14 CP!

CV7: ??
Kei, Resist: ?? + 0 = ??
Kei is drained for 7 CP!

CV8: ??
Kei, Resist: ?? - 3 = ??
Kei is drained for 9 CP!

It's been a couple days so everyone started at full chakra. Current CP totals:

• Hazō: (- 315 25 30 18 18 14) = 210 CP
• Kei: (- 315 30 15 9 14 7 9) = 231 CP
• Noburi: 2000
• Tenten is at full less 45 from chakra boosting

The chakravores are in the cavern ahead but not in direct line of sight, so if the teams wants to attack the enemy they're going to have to enter the cavern. Magmaspines 0-4 have LOS to the kids and get to swing.

Magmaspine #0: ??
Hazō, Athletics 40 + 9 (RRB) + 10 (Reflexive Supplemental, Substitution, 14 CP, 196 remaining) + 6 (boost) + 3 (dice) = 68
Whiff!

Magmaspine #1: ??
Kei, Athletics 53 + 9 (RRB) + 13 (Reflexive Supplemental, Substitution, 14 CP, 217 remaining) + 6 (boost) - 6 (dice) = 75
Whiff!

Magmaspine #2: ??
Hazō is out of Reflexive Supplementals, so no Substitution for him!
Hazō, Athletics 40 + 9 (RRB) + 6 (boost) - 2 (Substituted already) + 6 (dice) = 59
Hazō is hit by a blob of magma for 1 shift! The physical impact is less harmful than the heat, meaning it counts as Energy damage. His PCJ does not protect him but it also doesn't break.

Magmaspine #3: ??
Kei is out of Reflexive Supplementals! No Substitution! Kei, Athletics 53 + 9 (RRB) + 6 (boost) - 2 (Substituted already) + 3 (dice) = 69
Whiff!

Magmaspine #4: ??
Hazō, Athletics 40 + 9 (RRB) + 6 (boost) - 2 (Substituted already) + 5 (invoke "(Formerly) Marked for Death") + 3 (dice) = 61
Whiff!

Kei spikes the largest magmaspine through the eye with a pointy bit of metal equipped with an explosive doorknocker to soften the enemy up. Hazō blitzes forward.

Kei:

• Supplemental: Cloak of the Wind God, Effect: 4 ((- 217 87) = 130 CP remaining)
• Supplemental: Arm the explosive tag on her left-hand kunai
• Standard: Throw it

Ranged Weapons 49 + 8 (2x tags from Cloak) + 6 (boost) = 63
Magmaspine #0: ??

The magmaspine she was targeting is dead, ripped in half by a fast-moving chunk of metal. The explosive goes off and all the critters must dodge a TN:40 attack. They all succeed, but the explosion creates the Fragile Aspect 'Startled' on all the critters. No tags awarded.

Hazō enters the cavern!

• Supplemental: Move into Cavern zone
• Free action: See the small army that they are facing
• Supplemental: Nope the fuck out back into Tunnel Near zone
• Free action: Tell everyone else to back up
• Standard, used as a Supplemental: Reaching Arms of the Tsuchigumo ((- 196 72) CP, 124 remaining)

Everyone else except Kei and Hazō: Back up out of the combat area.

Round 2:

The chakravores get to take one more nibble before the kids run for it.

Kei is drained for 25 CP!

Hazō is drained for 9 CP!

Kei: Supplemental, move out of the combat area

Hazō is drained for 19 CP!

Hazō is drained for 24 CP!

Hazō is drained for 14 CP!

Hazō is drained for 13 CP!

Hazō is drained for 6 CP!

Hazō is drained for 11 CP!

Hazō is drained for 7 CP!

Hazō moves out of the combat area.

Combat ends.

Final chakra totals:

• Hazō: (- 124 9 19 24 14 13 6 11 7) = 21
• Kei: (- 130 25) = 105
• Noburi: 2000
• Tenten: full less 45 chakra boost
• Hazō's FP total is unchanged. He is -1 FP for the invoke but +1 for surviving the combat.

The Cavern zone is now encircled with giant stone spikes from the Reaching Arms of the BlahBlah technique. Hazō only has it at level 1 so the spikes give the zone a Border:1, but more important is the fact that they block LOS in and out of the zone, and therefore prevent the magmaspines from shooting at anyone. The magmaspines do not pursue, choosing instead to stay with their chakravore buddies and stick with the whole combined arms evolutionary strat they've been rocking. (Note: Hazō could have used the cheaper Multiple Earth Wall to seal the tunnel. The reason to use the Reaching Arms is that it's cool he's never used it before and let's get some gorram use out of things that are fresh and interesting and remind the players that they exist it encircles the entire cavern and makes it less likely that any of the critters will leave the cavern before the kids can get back to kill them.

Now that they know what they are facing, the team gets their dancing shoes on and heads back in. First, Noburi portions out water for everyone, then they start setting up their buffs.

It takes more than 30 seconds to portion out water and make plans, so everyone's buffs have expired and it's necessary to start fresh.

Round 1:

Tenten: TBD

Noburi:
Standard: Hōzuki's Mantle (50x3=150 CP, 1850 remaining)
Supplemental: Water Whip
Supplemental: Activate Reusable Rocket Boots seal

Kei:
Supplemental: Cloak of the Wind God: 4 (87 CP, 18 remaining)
Supplemental: Activate Reusable Rocket Boots seal

Hazō:
Standard: Pangolin Earth Armor, Effect 3: (79 CP, a few points remaining because he got enough of a refill before this to be able to cast it)
Supplemental: Activate Reusable Rocket Boots seal

Round 2, Full Round: Everyone drinks their pre-portioned chakra water. (I don't actually remember if drinking water is a Full Round but if it isn't then it should be.)

New chakra totals:

• Tenten: full
• Hazō: 315
• Kei: 315
• Noburi: (- 2000 315 (- 315 104) 45 38 150) = 1241. NB: Hazō's 315 was over the span of two refills, one of them offscreen, because he needed one to be able to cast PEA. The 38 and 150 are the costs for Water Whip and Hōzuki's Mantle. (Noburi pays triple for Mantle but not for WW.)

Time to attack!

To get to melee range, the team needs to move three zones (start => Tunnel Far => Tunnel Near => Cavern). The ranged fighters still need to enter Cavern as the tunnel mouth doesn't give enough field of view to spot enemies and the chakravores can drain you as you stand there even when they don't have LOS. The team has to assume that the chakravores will be on them the second they enter Tunnel Far, so they want to move as fast as possible. Using a Sprint action would let them cross the distance in one Standard action but then they couldn't attack but they would be attacked. A Supplemental move + Substitution would only get them two zones, which isn't far enough.

Once again, Noburi is the MVP! The following sequence is a little squishy mechanically in terms of how initiatives should shake out but I consider it reasonable so I'm going with it—the simulation trumps the mechanics, after all. Because I'm being squishy about it I'm making my life simple by saying that the transit round is atomic; neither side gets to attack that round and we start fresh on the following round.

Round 3: Attack!

First, everyone uses a Supplemental to move into the Tunnel: Far zone.

Next, Noburi casts Surging Seas at Effect:2 (32 CP, 1209 remaining). Everyone must make an Athletics check to avoid being washed away; he's only got it at level 10, so everyone succeeds. They decide to ride the wave and are thus carried 2 zones into the Cavern zone without spending an action. Note that this is bodysurfing in a roughly standing position, not waterwalking. Thus the oilskin sacks on their feet protect their Reusable Rocket Boot seals.

There is, of course, the small matter of a wall of stone spikes in the way. Fortunately, Hazō has the solution: Tunnel Excavation. Just before the wave smashes the team noses-first into the wall and converts them to meat sauce, Hazō Excavates a hole through the spike wall and the party swooshes past. They have moved fast enough that the chakravores didn't get to ding them on the way in, but (as mentioned above) I am charging them their remaining actions for the round.

Round 4: Fight!

The entire team is now in the Cavern zone with their full actions. They are surrounded by 9 chakravores who are hovering near the ceiling and 21 magmaspines scattered around on the floor and walls. The magmaspines still have their armor up.

Tune in next time for the exciting conclusion!

The cavern was a mere two dozen yards ahead. The team ghosted down the tunnel in two groups, Hazō and Kei well in the lead, using every scrap of their stealth training to ensure the enemy remained unaware.

Granted, it was Team Uplift; their stealth was kinda meh, so it was less 'ghosted' and more 'sauntered while trying not to clomp'. They were really more about overwhelming firepower, to be honest.

Hazō and Kei led because they had demonstrated the ability to resist chakravore drain better than the non-Shadow-Clone-users. Resistance, however, was not immunity.

Hazō felt invisible jaws dig themselves into his soul and begin tearing off fragments, pulling the chakra from his coils with a painful jolt.

"Chakravore!" he cried, blitzing forward even as he sent chakra roaring through every muscle fiber. The creatures must have heard him as more bites were taken from his chakra supply.

Beside him, Kei tossed both of her kunai in the air and spun through handseals.

In front of them, five dull-red blobs of magma shaped like weasels rose up from the floor of the cavern, tiny black eyes the only sign that these were living creatures. They convulsed and thumb-sized blobs of molten stone flew so fast they left trails of light in the air.

Hazō and Kei vanished into the blurring speed of Substitution, the tunnel just wide enough to give them room to dodge. That and the inhuman movement allowed by the rocket seals on their feet was just enough to let them weave through the net of burning rock, although Hazō smelled some of his hair crisping away as the stuff skimmed just over his head.

"Wind Element Technique: Cloak of the Wind God!" Kei called out. The technique finished, she snatched her falling kunai from the air, armed the explosive tag on the left-hand weapon, and sent it forward over Hazō's shoulder with blinding speed. It passed two inches from his ear but he didn't even flinch; he knew his sister and knew her skill.

Hazō erupted from the tunnel, juking back and forth on the thrust of his rocket boot seals to make himself a harder target as he zeroed in on the nearest enemy, Force-Claw-equipped pangolin gauntlets raised and ready to evisc—

—he was surrounded by an absolute fuckton of magma-covered, magma-spitting weasels.

"The fuck nope," he muttered. He flipped, body horizontal to the ground, one hand dabbing down to push himself up as his rocket boot seals sent him flying back into the tunnel. "Earth Element: Reaching Arms of the Tsuchigumo!" he called just as his feet cleared the entrance. Behind him came the tearing crunch as enormous stony teeth lunged out of the ground, encircling the entire cavern and blocking the entrance.

"Retreat! Retreat!" he cried, even as the chakravores sucked with greedy, frantic speed at his reserves.

Ten seconds and a hundred yards up the tunnel, far enough that the drain had stopped, everyone gathered for a council of war. Their shadows splayed weirdly around in the light of the Jiraiya's Awesome Daybright Lantern seals as they gathered around Noburi's barrel.

"Couldn't get a perfect count but there were at least two dozen of the lava weasels," Hazō said.

"Magma."

Hazō frowned in confusion. "What?"

"The correct terminology is magma while it is underground. It is only lava once it reaches the surface."

"Okay," Hazō said, "but shouldn't it be lava once it's in the open air, regardless of whether that's in a cavern or on the surface?"

"It is not my fault if those who invented the science of—"

Tenten cleared her throat. Kei and Hazō fell silent, both blushing.

"Right," Hazō said. "So. Couldn't get a solid count but maybe a couple dozen of the magmaweasel things. Couldn't see how many chakravores there are but it's got to be a bunch from the way they got us. Here's my thinking..."

He laid out his plan.

The rest of the team exchanged glances.

"That's insane," Noburi said. "Even for a Hazō plan, that's insane."

Tenten nodded.

"Hazō, did you not consider that our rocket boot seals would be ruined by—"

Hazō raised a hand to cut her off. "You didn't let me finish."

He laid out the rest of the plan.

Glances were exchanged.

"It's still insane," Noburi grumbled.

"But it would work, right?" Hazō demanded, looking to their resident sanity checker.

Said sanity-checker looked sour. "I see no specific reason that it would necessarily fail," she hedged. "However, the timing—"

"Nope. You said it would work so we're doing it."

"I said no such thing!"

"Can't hear you, lalala! Everyone get your gear on."

Kei looked extremely unhappy as she began pulling equipment from her storage seals, grumbling noting all the while that she was doing so under protest. She definitely was not grumbling. Bearers of the crystalline power of the Frozen Skein did not 'grumble', they 'noted'.

o-o-o-o​

A hundred yards from the walled-off entrance to the cavern, the team stacked up in entry formation. Bizarrely, their feet were wrapped in oilskin sacks, slipknotted above the knee. Everyone had spent several minutes moving up and down the tunnel, getting used to the feel of the material and how it shifted at each step, as well as practicing fast removal of the things. The fact that they were doing so meant that everyone was obeying their Clan Lord, yet no one was happy about it. Well, except for Hazō, who was running a well-funded campaign for Mayor of Smugton. Noburi, the longtime incumbent holder of the title, was too bemused and disgruntled about the situation to make a serious defense.

"Pangolin Earth Armor."

"Cloak of the Wind God."

"Hōzuki's Mantle. Water Whip."

Hand rose, heads tipped back, and chakra-infused water was gulped.

Noburi tapped Tenten on the shoulder, signaling his readiness to cause murder, mayhem, and general unfriendliness. Tenten tapped Kei who tapped Hazō who blitzed forward with the others on his heels.

As they entered the range where Hazō had previously started being drained, Noburi called out, "Water Element Technique: Surging Seas!"

The vast power of the ocean erupted, thousands of gallons of chakra-construct water coming into existence around them and blasting forward at insane speed.

The team was ready; they stepped lightly up into the surge, decades of trained reflexes and athleticism allowing them to ride the wave forward like a fractious mount. The speed forced Hazō to squint around wind-drawn tears that blurred his sight of the upcoming wall of rock blocking the cavern ahead.

Moments before they would have smashed face-first into the stone and been turned into chunky meat sauce, Hazō flicked off a short chain of handseals.

"Earth Element: Tunnel Excavation!"

A two-meter hole formed in the center of the spines that blocked the cavern entrance. The tsunami that they rode was funneled down into a water jet, hurling the team through the entrance like a fastball from a giant, arcing them through the air for a dozen yards.

The four ninja flowered out to the sides, their rocket boots giving them full three-dimensional mobility. Explosions, mist, and pointy metallic death spread out around them in a fast-moving shell of destruction.

The chakravores and magmaweasels screamed their animalistic challenge and lashed out in reply.

Spoiler: Dice (spoilers!)

First off, chakra boost:

• Tenten: 9 (45 CP, ?? remaining)
• Noburi: 8 (40 CP, 1169 remaining
• Hazō: 6 (30 CP, 285 remaining)
• Kei: 6 (30 CP (285 remaining)

Note: Attack numbers are all ?? so I'm not bothering to list them individually. No one is going to use FP on drain resist rolls, not even for rerolls. They will use FP against the magmaspines.

Let's divide up the attackers. I could get fancy and say that the first people into the room draw more fire but that would be work and I'm writing this at quarter of midnight so it's equal probability. 1 = Hazō, 2 = Noburi, 3 = Kei, 4 = Tenten.

Default target selections, possibly overriden by later events:
Chakravores, target selection: 1,1,2,1,2,1,4,4,4
Magmaspines, target selection: 1,3,1,3,1,1,3,3,4,4,2,1,1,4,2,3,4,4,3,1,1

Tenten: Ranged Weapons + ?? + 9 (boost) + 0 (dice) = ??
WR:1 plus that roll is enough that her target is probably gibbed and I'm not bothering with the math. Whatever, it's out of the fight. Her target was (...rolls...) CV4.

Everyone in the zone must dodge a TN:40 attack from the explosive.
All of the critters succeed
Given the presence of chakra boost and RRBs, all of the kids succeed

CV0, targets Hazō. Hazō, Drain resist vs CV0: -6. Drained for 25.

Magmaspine #0 targets Hazō.
Hazō, Athletics 40 + 10 (Substitution: 14 CP, @@ remaining) + 9 (RRB) + 6 (boost) - 3 (PEA:3) + 0 (dice) = 62
Whiff!

MS #1 targets Kei.
Kei, Athletics 53 + 9 (RRB) + 6 (boost) + 5 (1 tag from CotWG) - 6 (dice) = 67
Whiff!

MS #2 targets Hazō
Hazō, Athletics 40 + 10 (Substitution: 14 CP, @@ remaining) + 9 (RRB) + 6 (boost) - 3 (PEA:3) - 2 (previously Substituted) - 6 (dice) = 54
Hazō has so many gorram FP that he can afford to blow one on rerolling a -6. -1FP
Hazō, Athletics 40 + 10 (Substitution: 14 CP, @@ remaining) + 9 (RRB) + 6 (boost) - 3 (PEA:3) - 2 (previously Substituted) + 3 (dice) = 63
Whiff!

MS #3 targets Kei
Kei, Athletics 53 + 9 (RRB) + 6 (boost) + 5 (1 tag from CotWG) + 6 (dice) = 79
Whiff!

Kei's turn! Stabby pointy death! Probing attack to see how much effort she needs to put into these things so she conserves resources for dodging.
Kei:
Supplemental: save for Substitution
Supplemental: arm the explosive tag attached to her left-hand kunai
Standard: kill a chakravore fool (dice say it's CV #8)
Kei, Ranged Weapons 49 + 6 (boost) + 0 (dice) = 55
CV#8 was the slow, weak runt of the litter! Kei gets 1 shift off the dice + 4 for the explosive. The critter takes a Mild and a Medium. On its turn it will run for it.

There's another 'dodge the explosion' roll here. Everyone succeeds.

MS #4 targets Hazō
Hazō, Athletics 40 + 5 (invoke "(Formerly) Marked for Death", -1FP) + 9 (RRB) + 6 (boost) - 3 (PEA:3) - 2 (previously Substituted) + 0 (dice) = 55
A blob of magma splashes into Hazō's chest! His Pangolin Earth Armor (Effect 3) tanks the damage long enough that he can wipe it off before the heat harms him.

MS #5 targets Hazō:
Hazō, Athletics 40 + 5 (invoke "Team Uplift", -1FP) + 9 (RRB) + 6 (boost) - 3 (PEA:3) - 2 (previously Substituted) - 3 (dice) = 52
Noburi's Water Whip flicks out and grabs Hazō's ankle, yanking him out of the way of a magma bullet that was about to smack him in the face! Instead it splashes off the shoulder of his PEA:3!

MS #6 targets Kei
Kei, Athletics 53 + 9 (RRB) + 6 (boost) + 5 (1 tag from CotWG, 1 tag remaining) + 3 (dice) = 76
Whiff!

CV #2 targets Noburi
Noburi is drained for 44 CP! @@ remaining

MS #7 targets Kei
Kei, Athletics 53 + 9 (RRB) + 6 (boost) + 5 (1 tag from CotWG, 0 tag remaining) + 0 (dice) = 73
Whiff!

MS #8 targets Tenten
Tenten, Athletics ?? + ?? + 9 (dice) = ??
Whiff!

CV #3 targets Hazō
Hazō, Resist + 12 (dice) Wow! Pity to waste it on this.
Hazō is drained for 3 CP! @@ remaining

MS #9 targets Tenten
Tenten: ?? + ?? + 0 (dice) = ??
Whiff!

CV #4 targets no one, because it is dead! Tenten gibbed it at the top of the round.

MS #10 targets Noburi.
Note: Quick reminder on how Hōzuki's Mantle works. It provides a 270-degree dome of water around the user with tentacles that lash out at nearby enemies. It's slow to rotate so it gives a penalty to Athletics of 15 - (Level/2), but it gives a bonus of (Level/2) to avoiding attacks, as well as Armor:2. It's only useful against multiple attackers, since the enemy with the highest Athletics can always arrange to get in front of you and fire down the throat of it. Thus, it provides no protection against this particular attack but will help him against the remaining attacks this round. The Athletics penalty still applies. Leveling this to 30 in order to get rid of the penalty would be a good move.
Noburi, Athletics 45 + 9 (RRBs) + 8 (boost) - 5 (Hōzuki's Mantle penalty to Athletics) + 9 (dice) = 66
Whiff!

Right, let's move this along.
MS #11 targets Hazō. Hazō is out of combat Aspects and Substitutions
Hazō, Athletics 40 + 9 (RRB) + 6 (boost) - 3 (PEA:3) - 2 (previously Substituted) - 3 (dice) = 47
Another hit, another instance of the armor saving his ass

MS #12 targets Hazō
Hazō, Athletics 40 + 9 (RRB) + 6 (boost) - 3 (PEA:3) - 2 (previously Substituted) + 3 (dice) = 50
Ibid

CV #6 targets Hazō
Hazō, Resist - 6 (dice)
Hazō is drained for 19 CP! @@ remaining

MS #13 targets Tenten. It whiffs

MS #14 targets Noburi
Noburi, Athletics 45 + 9 (RRBs) + 8 (boost) - 5 (Hōzuki's Mantle penalty to Athletics) + 10 ( Hōzuki's Mantle bonus) - 3 (dice) = 64
Whiff!

MS #15 targets Kei
Kei, Athletics 53 + 9 (RRB) + 6 (boost) + 0 (dice) = 68
Whiff!

CV #7 target Tenten
Tenten, Resist + 3 (dice)
Tenten is drained for ?? CP, ?? remaining

MS #16 targets Tenten. It whiffs
MS #17 targets Tenten. It whiffs

MS #18 targets Kei
Kei, Athletics 53 + 9 (RRB) + 6 (boost) - 3 (dice) = 65
Whiff!

MS #19 targets Hazō
Hazō, Athletics 40 + 9 (RRB) + 6 (boost) - 3 (PEA:3) - 2 (previously Substituted) + 0 (dice) = 50
Saved once again by that gorram PEA. That thing is so OP.

MS #20 targets Hazō. It whiffs or the armor soaks it, I can't be bothered.
MS #21 is dead, killed by Kei in the earlier engagement.

Noburi, Water Whip 50 + 7 (Hōzuki's Mantle) + 8 (boost) + 0 (dice) = 65
He hits (randomly selecting...) MS #12. The little monster is Limping! Noburi gets a tag and passes it to Hazō.

Hazō, Taijutsu 43 + 9 (RRBs) + 6 (macerator) + 6 (boost) + 5 (tag the 'Limping' Consequence) + 3 (dice) = 72
The magmaspine is not just dead it is super dead. In fact, it's literally gibbed. Its burning hot lava guts splash across Hazō's goddamn face where the armor is thinner and do 1 stress because I goddamn said so. Rassa frassa stupid OP armor...

There's no reason to think more rounds of this combat are going to be any different. The kids win; maybe they take some damage, maybe not. Very unlikely that it's worse than a Mild. Hazō would be super dead if it weren't for PEA but the rest of them seemed to handle things pretty well.

Fight's over. You win, monsters are dead or fled, cavern is sealed up. Cave system can now be considered safe and it's fine to move on from the hunting part of the assignment and do something else. I can't even be bothered to go back and figure out/fill in the placeholder '@@' markers for chakra.

Everyone gets 1 FP for surviving the battle. Unstagnation results will be announced after I talk with the other QMs.

First to move, reflexes honed by a harsher school even than that of most ninja, was Tenten. Her thrown kunai was nothing but a blur, spiking deep into the body of a chakravore before the tag wrapped around the hilt detonated, spreading the creature out into a chunky red mist with the occasional giblet falling with a wet plop to the cavern floor.

The blast front from the explosion could have been a problem had the team not known to expect it. From the instant they had entered the room, everyone had been diving for cover behind one of the many giant stalagmites, knowing that Tenten would wait only an instant.

Sheathed in thick layers of stony armor courtesy of his pangolin-forged jutsu, Hazō didn't bother dodging. He barely felt it as the blast washed over him—indeed, if it hadn't been for the loud noise and the shrieking fear of the various enemy beasts, he might have missed the explosion completely. Even the 'loud noise' was more of a gentle whump when filtered through the protection of his Banshee Slayer earmuff seals.

Doughty his armor might be, but looking like a six-foot golem covered in nobbly spikes and coarse fracture lines that ground loudly as you move tends to attract attention. Multiple chakravores bit at him from across the cavern, frantically tearing chakra from his core in a desperate attempt to attack him in one of the few ways he was still vulnerable. He wrestled against the attempts, forcing his chakra to move through his body the way he commanded, but the effort only slowed the depredations slightly instead of stopping them.

The lava—magmaweasels were shrieking and flinging blobs of molten stone in every direction. Two of them simultaneously targeted Kei; she saw the first and flipped, kicked out, the movement slowing her and adding a sideways vector that let her duck beneath the first missile and pirouette as neatly as a dancer around the second before making one of her properly pointed retorts—except, instead of her point being expressed as sharp words intended to terrify or excoriate, this time it was expressed as sharp steel that went all the way through the weasel's brain and broke against the cavern floor. The standard Gōketsu tactic of 'always send an explosive with your missive—it's only polite' was entirely redundant and became yet one more thump of noise in Hazō's ears and flash of light in the corner of his eye.

A weasel popped out from behind one of the stalagmites and spat, sending a fist-sized molten missile into Hazō's chest. Perhaps he could have avoided it had he not been weighed down by his armor, perhaps not. In the event, it smashed into his chest and made him grunt slightly. He wiped the lava off before it could melt through the stone that encased him and jetted towards the sender, pangolin claws raised in eagerness to offer his reply to the insult.

Halfway there, angling down towards the ground with his rocket boot seals hurling him forward at enormous speeds, the magmaweasel's packmate skittered out from behind the same stalagmite as its partner and fired its lava straight into Hazō's face. His face, where the armor was thinnest. Where eyes were protected only by thick ridges around the sockets instead of a nice heavy layer of stone. Where, basically, his eyes were set at the bottom of two funnels that would guide the lava right in.

The timing was perfect, clearly something that the monsters had practiced. Hazō felt his eyes going wide, felt his mouth opening in an instinctive 'O' of horror even though that was exactly what he shouldn't do. His mind was skittering, flashing at quicksilver speed, but his body was stuck in meat-glacier time and the missile was far too close for him to—

Noburi's Water Whip snaked out, caught Hazō around the ankle, and yanked him to the side just enough for the attack to splash off the side of his armored head instead of pouring straight into his eyes.

"Watch your ass!" Noburi shouted, the tendrils of his water shield flailing every which way, destroying weasels and chakravores with every passing touch.

Hazō silently promised to do something nice for his brother, but he didn't let the thought stop him from smashing into his target with both clawed fists and reducing it to crushed filets.

The battle was not going well for the chakra beasts.

o-o-o-o​

"Never again shall I be clean," moaned Kei. "The blood of my foes cleaves too close to my bone, rendering every scrap of this, my flesh, encarmined." She scrubbed frantically at her hair and dipped it once more into the canvas tub they had set up for the purpose.

"I didn't know you were a fan of Monzaemon," Noburi said. He was sitting a few yards away, casually swinging one leg as he lounged back on a bench that Hazō had created with the Multiple Earth Wall jutsu. He had finished his 'bath' already; he fought at mid-range and his Hōzuki's Mantle, a three-quarter dome of protective water, had kept him from getting more than a bit of blood on him. A quick wipe-down with some of the water from their storage seals (everyone agreed without need for discussion that to wash off blood in the chakra-water pool would have been sacrilegious) and a vigorous toweling had been sufficient to render him fit for public company once more.

Tenten and Hazō too had largely escaped the battle cleanly—Tenten because she was too agile to allow blood to touch her and Hazō because he had been encased in a full-body suit of armor the whole time. Kei, on the other hand, had been fast enough to explode a chakravore as it hovered above her tearing the life force from her veins, but not fast enough to avoid the rain of meat fragments and blood mist that resulted. She had come out of the battle looking like a rat that had been half-drowned in tomato soup.

"I read some Monzaemon," Yuno said. "After Noburi and I were married. It seemed...gloomy."

"I liked some of his early work," Mari said. She was in the pool, floating on her back with eyes closed. "You know, before his wife died and he got all dark and edgy."

"The latter part of his career was his finest work!" Kei objected. "His early product was, I suppose, entertaining in its puerile and flighty fashion, but it was only in the latter half of his life that he truly grappled with the serious issues."

"Eh, early or late stuff, he's a little flowery for me," Hazō said. He was making dinner, which in the modern Gōketsu clan meant sorting through the storage seals to decide what to unseal. Mari had made it a rule that they weren't allowed to just grab whatever they wanted; dinner was a family affair and it needed to be made as a coordinated thing and served properly. She swore that this was for reasons of team morale and cohesion, but Hazō suspected that this was because she couldn't be bothered to make her own food choices when she had minions to do it for her. He all too clearly remembered the Great Congee Massacre of yesteryear, and Mari's resulting excusal from the dinner-making chores. That had been before storage seals were so trivial that the team was carrying most of a year of food on themselves at all times, back when making dinner actually was a chore. Still, it would be just like her to continue the tradition of messing with them.

"Hmph," Kei said. "None of you have any appreciation for proper theatrical writing and the depth of philosophy it contains."

"Maybe it would be better if it was performed?" Yuno asked. "You know...the sets and the actors might give a different sense to it, maybe?"

"Perhaps," Kei allowed. "Monzaemon's work was most commonly performed in his home nation of Wind and only rarely in Leaf. Perhaps someday we will have the opportunity to visit Sand and see it done properly."

"Don't get your hopes up," Mari said, her lackadaisical tone disappearing. "Remember that after the war, Wind relocated their capital to the coast. I suspect that migrating tens of thousands of people has thrown things into chaos and the last report I saw said that they were still struggling to get things up and running. The new Village Hidden in the Sand probably doesn't have a lot of spare hands for theater right now, and its possible that documents, including theatrical scripts, were lost in the move. We may need to hire it done ourselves. I'm pretty sure Leaf has copies of most of his work."

Kei sighed in gloomy satisfaction as the universe once again lived down to her expectations.

---

XP AWARD: 10 This update covered 2.5 days, with the remaining 0.5 day having been covered in an earlier chapter.

Voting ends on Wednesday, Sep 18, 2024 at 6:00 PM .

 

[Paperclipped]

Chapter 680: So Much, Yet Not Enough​

"Are you getting anything?" Hazō asked.

"Yeah," Noburi replied, eyes closed with his fingers dipped in the grotto's water. "It's like… Hm. I don't know how to explain it. She's getting… brighter, maybe? Not exactly. I don't think I'd sense her from farther away. But she's more prominent in my attention. More than she always is, of course."

Through the thin privacy screen that Kei had provided, Hazō saw the rising outlines of Yuno and Satsuko relax back against the edge of the pool.

"Right. Can you sense inside Yuno's chakra system?"

"Not really," Noburi said. "I don't think I can do better than that seal you gave me. It's basically designed to figure out what's going on inside people's chakra systems."

"Well, it's actually designed for sealing Tailed Beasts, but it'll do. I don't know if I could make an improved version of a seal the Sage-damned Fourth Hokage made, and I'd rather save time trying. Is it good enough for you to figure out what the water is doing?"

"Saving time?" Noburi asked. "Since you apparently cracked the power of spacetime manipulation while Tsunade taught me moderately-advanced medicine, what do you gotta worry about that for? Just make more."

"The runes don't stack," Hazō sighed, glancing over at the half-meter wide brick of crystal and stone that was currently accelerating time in the grotto for everyone. He hadn't quite understood everyone's reactions when he'd announced what he was going to do. Kei and Kagome had already known, Tenten was unreadable as always, but Mari, Noburi, and Yuno? He definitely felt some awe, but less hope than he'd been expecting. And, underneath it all, a hint of fear…

"Or, I don't think they would, at least. If they interact in some undefined way, I'd rather not test it."

"Is this the sealmaster thing where 'undefined behavior' sounds not that bad but is actually really, really bad?"

"Yeah."

"Right. Anyway, I assume you're here for a progress update? Well, like I said, most of the good information I'm getting is through that seal you gave me. The pool's effect takes a while to kick in – I'm guessing around three hours. Based on what Mari said, the increased chakra efficiency doesn't happen evenly through that period. Instead, it ramps up at the end. I have some theories about what's going on internally to cause that, but I don't know for sure."

"How did the tests on chakra constructs go?"

"Nothing," Noburi said. "No effect on Snowflake, no effect on Cansaku – and before you ask, no, I couldn't sense anything weird about the 'nature' chakra supposedly in Cansaku. Which figures, you know? Here I think I've found something nice to get back in good with the Toad Sages, and nope."

"What do you mean, get back in good with them?"

Noburi turned slightly to face Hazō, opening his eyes but not taking his fingers out of the grotto where Yuno still bathed (Kei had only said "boys" when he'd asked why she just had a fairly large, waterproofed screen on hand).

"Hazō, you were there for half of it. You remember how I had to beg and plead for them to begrudgingly agree to teach me anything, right? They thought they were doing me a huge favor, and then I immediately went and snubbed them and told them I'd rather go and train with Tsunade. They'd already said they'd train me so I promised I'd finish with Tsunade quickly and come back to train with them on a very strict schedule, so they'd know I was respecting their time fully.

"And then what happens? I show up on day three of training to scrunch up my chakra in whatever esoteric way only they understand and tell the Toad Sages, 'Actually no, I just betrayed the village – yeah, my equivalent of the Toad Clan on the Human Path – yeah, the same one Jiraiya dedicated his whole life to and died for – yeah, the loyalty to which is the reason I gave for picking Tsunade over you the first time – on Hazō's orders. Sorry, gotta save all my time, stamina, and chakra for running away from Leaf on the Human Path for the next who-knows how long. Sorry!' You've heard Jiraiya say it, you've heard Naruto say it, you've heard me say it, and you've seen it yourself. They're cantankerous and prideful. How do you think they took it?"

Hazō winced. "That bad, huh?"

"Actually, not nearly that bad," Noburi said. "I don't like the taste of toenail nearly as much as you do, so I put it much more gently than that. Fukasaku said he never wanted to see my face again, but he didn't actually burn my face off with some overpowered ninjutsu. Honestly, I don't know what you told him to convince Ma to check me over for genjutsu, but even she was… well, not hostile, but definitely not friendly.

"And before you ask, I did have Gamadai tell them that we went missing to fight Akatsuki as soon as you told me, that we weren't completely spitting on Jiraiya's memory. They didn't acknowledge it, but based on what I know of them, if I come crawling back in a few months with something interesting and valuable to them, they'll probably… well, not forgive me, but at least not blanket ban me from talking with them ever again."

"That's stupid," Hazō said, crossing his arms. "If they know we're going missing to fight Akatsuki – which they should definitely believe, given how much I've been drilling it into them for the past few months, they should be helping us, not shunning us."

Noburi shrugged. "They're prideful. That's what pride is, right? It's just temporarily becoming stupid when it comes to things important to who you are."

"It's just annoying, that's all," Hazō said. "At least they don't seem as pissed with me… though, I couldn't get them to take the oath not to carry information to me from outside, so I probably can't talk to them while Akatsuki is still on our tail. Maybe this doesn't harm the expected mission success rate as much as I thought."

"Annoying for you?" Noburi asked, chuckling. Hazō thought he caught a hint of tension in the sound. "I mean, fair enough. I was going to say something about how going missing really meant burning our lives down, but I suppose you know that just as much as I do. What are you missing most?"

The image of Ino came to his mind unprompted, but Hazō pushed it away to think. "I just wonder how the clan is doing without us. Not to oversell us, but Team Uplift is the core of Clan Gōketsu. It's pretty easy for me to see how it could just collapse in my absence if people don't trust Gaku and follow his lead. Still, I'd rather the clan temporarily implode than force them all to live in a dystopia under Pain."

"Man, you are really focused on the mission, huh?" Noburi asked. "No time to relax in what's probably the world's only hot spring that gives you a massage from the inside?"

"I intend to. While I was setting up the Time Rune, I realized how inefficient it was to spend chakra on Earthshaping while the pool was right here. We need to maximize our chakra efficiency to maximize available research time. Speaking of which – how does the effect work on your system?"

"Yeah, yeah. My chakra system is fucked up because half of it is here-" he gestured to his chest with his free hand, "-and half of it is here." He gestured to the barrel sitting by his side. "I haven't bathed in it yet, but I don't think it'll hurt me permanently. It's all gentle with your chakra system. I'll monitor myself with that seal you gave me. I'll survive. The water didn't interact with my bloodline at all, either. I can store chakra in it, and I can drain and sense through it. All normal."

"How about storage?" Hazō asked.

"That's the weird thing," Noburi said. "That doesn't seem to work. Haul a bathtub of water out of the lake? Sure enough, I can pick up the beginnings of the effect starting in Tenten's coils after a ten minutes submerged. Store a bathtub of water and unstore it in the same spot? I spend thirty minutes staring at the seal readouts, and nothing.

"And I was definitely staring only at the seal readouts," Noburi said in a whisper to Hazō, "given the number of women that would messily murder me if my gaze accidentally slipped to Tenten while she was in the bath."

"I never would have thought otherwise," Hazō said confidently, "and in fact, your denials only plant the seed of doubt in my mind."

Hazō saw the outline of Yuno's head through the screen turning towards them.

"Oh, it's nothing, Yuno!" Noburi said, raising a hand quickly. "Just a, uh, joke."

Yuno considered, then her head slowly turned back.

Noburi winced. "Shouldn't have said that," he whispered. "She still feels bad that she doesn't get the team's in-jokes."

Back to a normal voice, he continued. "But yeah, I did think it was weird. I thought some contaminant in the water was causing the effect, but storage seals should handle medicine-like things just fine. I have no clue what's going on if storage seals don't work."

"But that's not the weird part," Hazō said, frowning at Noburi. "The weird thing is that the water doesn't work on shadow clones. They're supposed to be physical clones of us. Is their chakra system different?"

"It has to be," Noburi said. "Clone coils don't generate chakra, but physical chakra coils do. I couldn't tell you what the difference is, but hey, maybe I'll figure it out while I'm investigating whether I can cast shadow clones safely. Speaking of which, I will probably need a stipend out of our chakra budget for that, if only to get to watch someone cast the technique a few times per day and monitor their clones."

"Sure," Hazō said. "Fine. You need chakra, I need chakra. What's the bottom line on the pool? Can you replicate it, either through your bloodline or medical ninjutsu?"

"I've only been working at it for a day," Noburi said. "I can't tell you for sure."

"You get the most information when you start experimenting," Hazō said. "Less and less, each time you do it again. Remember our chakra-quantification experiments? I learned a lot from the first time I managed to do sixteen Substitutions, more when I pulled off seventeen the next time, a little more when I got nineteen, and then less as it went on. Even after three, I could have concluded that chakra was going to be weird."

"I think you could have told that after zero."

"Come on, Noburi. Can you do it?"

Noburi thought for a minute.

"Could the Vampiric Dew do it?" he said finally. "No. It's just too coarse for this sort of work, I think. Could medical ninjutsu do it? Yes."

Hazō felt a little knot of tension come loose, and Noburi glanced over at him and saw his expression, because he quickly raised his other hand.

"Wait, let me qualify that. I can't do it right now with any of my basic medical techniques. What I'm saying is that – based on what I think the pool is doing and comparing it to some of the medical ninjutsu Tsunade pulls out on the regular, I'm pretty sure that something like this effect should be replicable with medical ninjutsu. Still… First, I could be wrong about what the pool is doing. Second, I could be wrong about what's possible with medical ninjutsu because I misinterpreted Tsunade. Third, even if both of those are right, I don't know the first thing about ninjutsu creation, much less medical ninjutsu creation. So I'm pretty sure it's possible, but I don't actually see a path to doing it."

The tension hadn't actually come loose, it had just gone for a trip to the store and back. "Damn. And I'm definitely neither good enough at ninjutsu creation to teach you, nor do I have the time to do so. So our only hope is runes, then?"

"Probably," Noburi said, turning back to the water. "Maybe something lucky pops out, but my guess is no."

"Fine," Hazō said, gritting his teeth. "Can you describe to me what the pool is doing to someone's chakra system in as much detail as possible? I have a couple ideas for runes that can replicate this effect, but the better I understand it, the more detailed I can be."

"I could explain it to you," Noburi said skeptically. "But it would all be dense medical jargon."

"Then hurry up and teach me about chakra systems," Hazō said. "I asked before. Do you want me to beg and plead at your feet for you to teach me?"

"Actually… that would be nice," Noburi said.

Noburi looked at Hazō expectantly. Hazō crossed his arms. Noburi raised an eyebrow, inclining his head. Hazō tilted his head and frowned.

"When, smartass?" Noburi said, turning back to the water. "My schedule's packed tight. I gotta spend a couple days writing out in as much detail as I can what I think the water's doing to people's chakra systems. I've got baby's first solo bloodline research penciled in – namely, figuring out how the world's second-most complex jutsu is going to interact with my bloodline. When do I find the days or weeks to teach you all the crap Hashimoto taught me, when any spare time between projects or when we don't have chakra for extra shadow clones should be spent healing our most powerful direct combat asset?"

Hazō glanced over at Mari, who was relaxing on the far side of the grotto from the research team. "Are you sure about that?"

"Direct combat, genjutsu doesn't count."

"Whatever you say, bro," Hazō said. "Okay, maybe the medical ninjutsu teaching will have to wait. Or maybe I'll ask you to delay one of those other things. I'll try the runes with whatever details you can get me and we'll see how that goes."

o-o-o​

Once Noburi had gathered all the information he thought he could, the last few team members (himself, Hazō, Kagome, and Kei) finished their soaks in the grotto's heated pool. Yuno and Mari joined them while Tenten kept watch. It felt just as good as Mari had promised, and while Noburi and Mari and Yuno occasionally chatted it up, Hazō tried his best to feel what the pool was doing to his chakra. He even dropped into his technique-hacking trance for almost half an hour, only to find that the chakra within him was strangely… docile, perhaps?

Still, once, he'd exhausted everything reasonably productive he thought he could do while bathing, he had no choice but to relax.

The thoughts battered his mind.

The people he'd left behind – Ino, Gaku, whoever else Akatsuki decided was close to him – would be captured and held hostage by Akatsuki on the off chance Hazō ever read their Seventh Path messages. Given what they'd done to the jinchuuriki, torture wouldn't be off the table.

The Gōketsu Clan would implode from within, with no leadership to moderate disputes between the clan's factions. The clan's income would plummet without him and their Uplift projects would grind to a halt. Their political enemies would find a way to undo the clan altogether.

Orochimaru, with the power of runes, was going to find a way to steal the rift for himself. He had no true loyalty to Leaf or to Hazō. All of Hazō's hopes for the rift were going to disappear. He'd never see Jiraiya again. He'd never see Akane again.

Akatsuki was going to win. They were too powerful, and the odds were too sharply stacked against him. They'd open the rift, extract Pain, take control of the world with a solution second-best to the one even Orochimaru found unpalatable.

He tried to push them away. He couldn't.

o-o-o​

Finally, it came time for the team to emerge from their long soak, and as he directed his attention inward, Hazō could now definitely feel that something was different. His chakra felt… calmer. He felt like he could drop into his technique hacking trance in an instant if he needed to. Experimentally, he tried channeling chakra to his shoulder and marveled at how his arm snapped up. Not at how quickly it snapped up – it was no faster than usual. Instead, he marveled at how smooth it had felt. Normally, he felt a burning sensation when he channeled his internal chakra to move faster than an ordinary human could. Instead, he felt nothing. It was like he had been a wagon's axle coated in gunk all this time, and someone had finally cleaned and greased him.

Around him, he saw his teammates, many still wearing their towels from the pool, trying out the same experiments themselves. He hadn't glanced at what they'd been doing in the pool (when it came to bathing in Kei's vicinity, 'no peeking' was not so much a command as a law of reality), but apparently they too had saved their experiments for after they got out.

Kagome-sensei was quickly putting his blast harnesses back on, but Tenten had come down from her overwatch to help Kei experiment with different chakra-boosted throwing motions, while Yuno did some strange acrobatic maneuvering on the wall, and Mari watched them all with slight amusement.

And Noburi looked annoyed.

Had it not worked for Noburi, because of his abnormal chakra system?

"Alright everyone," Noburi said, addressing the cave and quickly bringing everyone's experiments to a stop (though Kagome continued to pull his pants up). "I know we're all close, like family, but all of this hiding of who we are has got to stop. I, for one, have seen what I needed to see. We're on the run together, we trust each other with our lives, so why are we worried about revealing ourselves to each other?"

"Noburi," Kei warned, reaching for her weapons pouch that had thus far stayed blessedly far from her hands. "I would request a clarification: are you confessing to observing us as we bathed?"

"I am," Noburi said. Hazō quickly checked if he remembered the appropriate prayers to the ancestors to make over a brother's funeral. Yes, he did.

"But this isn't about you, Kei," he said, holding up his palm to her.

"I've already done this with you before. It's about the other girls. You know what you've been hiding from us, Mari." He pointed straight at his teacher's chest. She glanced down at her cleavage in exaggerated shock.

"And to a lesser extent, you two," he said, gesturing to Yuno and Tenten. "Sorry my dear, but you are still new to the team. And I'm deciding now that we shouldn't keep any secrets from each other."

"Obviously, Kagome is the smallest," he said, turning on Kagome-sensei, who jumped slightly at Noburi's wrathful finger.

"Hazō and Kei are about the same," Noburi, pointing at his clan siblings' chests one by one. "Kei, yours are slightly bigger than Hazō's, of course, but that goes without saying."

"Then, you, Tenten, are slightly bigger than Kei," Noburi said, pointing at Tenten. She blushed.

"Yuno, my dear, you are so strong." Yuno, who had been grabbing Satsuko in confusion (and knowing Yuno, confusion was probably one of the many emotions best resolved with axe murder), paused. "And yours are bigger than all of these poor folk here," he said, gesturing at the Team Uplift members he'd already named.

"And Mari, you know what you are," Noburi said. Mari grinned and squeezed her arms together, causing her cleavage to pop out just a bit more. "Yours are the biggest of all. About as big as Kei and Kagome combined, I think."

Kei paused, confused, as she reared back to throw the kunai that would end her perverted brother's tirade and/or life.

"And then, of course, there's me," Noburi said, grinning widely and thumbing at himself. "I'm the biggest of all, and it's not even close. Mine are bigger than everyone else's combined."

Silence ruled in the cavern for a moment.

Tenten looked down at her chest, then questioningly at Kei.

"I had also initially inferred he was referring to breast size," Kei replied. "However, his final line has caused me to conclude he is instead referring to egos. Nonetheless, with his voyeuristic confession, I will proceed with termination." She pulled back to throw again.

"Chakra reserves!" Noburi said quickly, throwing up his hands, "I was talking about everyone's chakra reserves! I checked with my Bloodline Limit while we were all in the pool!"

Silence ruled in the cavern for a moment.

Then a series of slaps sounded off as palms met foreheads.

o-o-o​

Hazō opened his eyes without looking as his chakra suffused into the stone around him. Earthshaping was still expensive, steadily pulling chakra from him as he maintained it, but he could tell it was less than before.

First, the chakravore statue. He filled it with his chakra.

Hm. Nothing. He was expecting some resistance from the creature's own chakra the same way the cave in Honey had resisted the Earthshaping technique, but there was nothing there.

He tried manipulating it. The otter's face melted and twisted and folded on itself in slow motion.

He could work it like normal stone. Maybe because the creature was long dead? Any chakra it once held would have dissipated days ago.

He tried pushing his chakra deeper, and, as he expected, found that it was anatomically detailed all the way through. He could feel its organs, the pipes inside it through which food and waste would have once run. An interesting confirmation to his hypothesis, but nothing special. He set the statue aside.

He relaxed his hold on the ninjutsu's chakra and let it expand through the grotto. It touched every part of the grotto, then extended comfortably outwards to reach even into the caves around him. He expanded his reach slowly, feeling for any signs of resistance, any signs of chakra golems coming out of the earth to pound him into a paste, but… nothing.

He spent a couple hours closing off all the tunnels except their escape route, reducing the density of the masses of stone between the tunnels to fully fill the tunnels themselves with matter. Once he'd done that, he relaxed. A large-scale Earthshaping operation with no complaints from the cave? He was probably free to do as he pleased here.

He stopped trying to make changes, instead focusing within his reach for any unusual sensations from the technique.

Hm, he felt foreign chakra. He followed with his human eyes and saw one of the glowing, multi-colored crystals in the wall.

Yes… it hadn't resisted his ninjutsu, but it hadn't taken his chakra either. He could vaguely feel the outline of it like the void of Earthshaping chakra left behind by a piece of metal – the crystal jutting out of the rock face, then root-like tendrils embedding it in the wall of the grotto.

He tried pushing his chakra into it anyway, and any resistance it put up easily fell before the force of his ninjutsu. The crystal stopped glowing.

Huh. Okay, so there was a chakra effect in the crystals making them glow – they already knew that. It was anchored to the stone somehow, and Hazō's Earthshaping technique could override it pretty easily.

Should he override the rest of the crystals, and make sure that everything within his reach was his own chakra?

He narrowly decided against it. The crystals hadn't hurt anyone yet, and they were probably better for team morale than working only by the harsh light of the Daybright Lanterns. He'd tried his best to keep the team entirely in the cave, but had only convinced them to stay inside during the day, while they stretched their legs and trained outside in the desert at nights.

Still, he tried his best to send a message to the other crystals in the cave. Look what I did to your brother. I'll do the same to you if you mess with my team.

The crystals continued cycling through their colors.

Well, either they got the message or they didn't. Luckily, Noburi couldn't comment on him trying to make his chakra intimidating.

One last task before he emerged from the ninjutsu and back into the real world. He focused his attention at the markings on the wall just above him. He wanted to identify the oldest one, but it was so faded. He could feel the outer square and the scratches in the center in deep lines, intersecting and stretching outwards.

Hm, maybe it was like this? He deepened and extended the lines to fill the square. He checked, but none of the other scratches he could feel seemed like they were nearly as deep as the ones in the middle, so he smoothed them away, also detaching the lichens growing from the rock overhead. What remained was a square with four lines dividing it into even pieces, two vertical and horizontal, and two more along the diagonals. Like the character for a rice paddy, but crossed out.

Except, not quite. Hazō thought he'd straightened the lines too much – they shouldn't have hit the square perfectly at the corners and the midpoints of the sides. He rotated the lines inside the square slightly so that they had the same length.

Still not quite. The scratches were deeper in the middle, so the marks would have originally been thicker there and thinner at the edges.

Hm. Now Hazō wasn't sure any more of how much of this was true and how much was his own invention. It looked vaguely like an eight-pointed shuriken inside a square.

Ah, whatever, it was probably hundreds of years old. What did it matter anyway?

Instead, with the team having vetoed leaving his own mark, he set himself to a new task – cleaning up the rest of the markings on the walls, starting with Jiraiya's…

o-o-o​

After a few more minutes of staring into the fire, Snowflake finally rose and said her goodnights before retiring to join Kei and Tenten.

"So, it's just us, Mari."

"Just us," Mari agreed from across the small hibachi they huddled around for warmth. At the request of the team's couples, Hazō had Earthshaped nearly-enclosed alcoves for them to have some privacy while they slept (and yes, while they were sleeping, Kei-Tenten-Snowflake counted as a couple. Hazō had still made them a bigger alcove anyway). The other single member of their team, Kagome-sensei, had dozed off in an easy-escape sleeping bag near their exfiltration route. Thankfully, Hazō closing up the remaining tunnels had meant far fewer sleep-shattering explosions as tiny critters ran into the grotto's exhaustive trap perimeter.

"Isn't it getting late?" Hazō asked. "I think it's been about sixteen hours since I woke up at least. Shouldn't we get to sleep?"

To be honest, between being constantly underground and the time distortion from the rune, Hazō had no clue what the time was.

Mari sighed, flopping to the ground on her stuffed futon. "The less fun kind of sleeping," she muttered.

Years of practice let him ignore her comments, and after a moment, she picked up her romance novel again and flicked to the next page. It was a new one, he noticed, instead of one of her well-loved Jiraiya-authored books.

He watched her for a moment longer. There was something… tense about her. Not that she was nervous around him, but that she… wasn't looking at him? Actually, more that she had less of her attention on him than normal, and she was sustaining that by active willpower.

Hazō opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, then closed it. Mari was a master of her own body. She wouldn't give off cues that a relative beginner like him would pick up on.

…unless she wanted him to initiate the conversation himself. Obviously. He tried not to look like too much of an idiot as he opened his mouth again.

"What's up, Mari? Anything on your mind?"

"I've just been… thinking," she said, studiously keeping her gaze on her book. Hazō noticed that she wasn't actually flicking her gaze side to side to read.

"That's good?" Hazō said. "Or bad? I don't know which."

"Just thinking about our situation," Mari said, sighing.

"Ah," Hazō said. "So bad, then?"

"Eh, kind of mixed," Mari said. "I thought life as a missing-nin would be bad, but I wasn't expecting a chakra-boosted hot spring to relax in. I was expecting more murdering hunter-nin. On the flip side, I was expecting that I'd get to see the sun daily, so…"

"If you think it's important for team morale for people to do their training in daylight, we can do that," Hazō said. "Frankly, I was hoping I could lean on you a lot to make sure everyone was staying happy and on-mission."

"I know. I'll try, but it's a bit hard when my own morale isn't the greatest."

"You don't believe I can do it?" Hazō asked.

"The opposite, really," Mari said, folding her book and setting it down. She continued to stare off towards the glowing crystals along the grotto's walls.

"You do believe, and that's disheartening you…?" Hazō asked incredulously.

Mari sighed. "How do I explain this? Maybe I just start with the main thing I want to say. Hazō, I want you to have all my chakra."

"All your chakra?"

"Yes, all of it. Well, at least as much as Noburi can tap off of me while we're awake, keeping me at a high enough level of chakra that I can fight if we need to. You need it more than I do."

"Why?" Hazō asked. He could see the logic, but Mari was a jōnin. Jōnin trained their asses off – it was a fact of life drilled into him by his Academy teachers trying to get children to emulate their betters – and Mari couldn't do that if she was giving up every drop of chakra her coils produced. Plus, Hazō knew Mari, and for all that he knew that she loved him… she was also selfish.

"Well, lots of things," Mari said, now leaning back to stare into the ceiling. "For one, I'm not getting stronger as fast as I used to, so my training's less important. To some extent, I can't train in our current circumstances. I don't have subjects for genjutsu development, and the team, charming as they are, would be about as useful as fish if I were to try to train my microexpressions and such with them."

"You could spar with Yuno and sharpen your combat skills," Hazō said.

"I could, but that would cost chakra," Mari said. "And chakra is precious, like you've been telling us. I might be better at taijutsu than you'll ever be, but I know my limits. I'm never going to survive getting in a melee engagement with Hidan, much less the rest of Akatsuki. If I wanted to take them down, I'd be using my genjutsu, and you know how that ended."

"It worked, right?" Hazō asked. "You tagged Hidan with your genjutsu, but he just dropped out of range?"

"It didn't work," Mari said. Her voice had gotten a hair quieter. "I used Silent Night on him. That's still my best capture technique. But I didn't put my all into it, because I thought he'd have the willpower to resist it and I wanted to save my energy for dodging his counterattack. And he did have the willpower to resist it, but I don't know if I would have trapped him if I'd really given it my all. It's making me think that even my best isn't going to be enough to go up against Akatsuki."

"You can do it, Mari," Hazō said. "You're one of Leaf's strongest ninja – you were – and you have all the tools that the clan can give you. Could give you, that is."

"In time?" Mari asked. "Sure, I think with shadow clone training and WHOOSH on my side, maybe I could become strong enough to go toe-to-toe with some of Akatsuki's freaks. But that's not the situation we're in. We don't have the chakra for me to aggressively train like I did in Leaf, and you're thinking we'll face Akatsuki down in months, rather than years. That's not enough time for shadow clones to make a difference in combat power for me or you.

"I have a lot of chakra. That chakra can let you do more searching for that one game-breaking, skywalker-tier rune that'll give us an actual edge over Akatsuki, even a small chance of which is way better than me having a couple more tried-and-tested taijutsu tricks. So, you should take it."

"Thank you, Mari," Hazō said. "Honestly. I know you're sacrificing a lot in offering this, and I'm grateful."

"Don't be too grateful," Mari said. "I tried retiring from ninja life once, and that lasted nine days before the Third kicked the bucket and I had to get back in the swing of things. If something crazy happens in nine days, I'll assume it's a sign from the ancestors that I should never take a day off again. Or maybe I decide I want to keep my chakra because I think you're not using it well. I'm capricious, who knows.

"Still… I'm tired, Hazō. It was easier to train hard when we were in Leaf and I could eat delicious foods and talk to the people that called themselves my friends and get laid and see Uplift steadily growing in the clan. It was easier when I imagined myself training to set a good example to my genin team or to protect them from chakra beasts or missing-nin, instead of training to fight monsters that I know in my heart I won't beat.

"Only you can fight those monsters, Hazō. So take my chakra, and fight them with everything you got. Fight for me, since I can't."

Hazō stared at her, then into the dancing flames. The logs in the hibachi were blackened, but they would probably burn for hours yet before they sputtered out to ash.

"Mari… I will."

---

You have taken a number of chakravore corpses. Neither Noburi nor Kagome know what to study in them.

The pool makes all chakra use except for summoning 20% less expensive (so boosting and dispelling cost 4CP instead of 5CP, and Pangolin Earth Armor (Effect:3) would cost 64 CP instead of 79). Rune infusion also is not discounted.

The effect lasts for 10 days, so you can soak in the pool and have time to travel pretty much anywhere in the EN and do a mission while you're there.

Noburi has collected fungi and plants with useful medical properties, good to the tune of a situational Aspect with 1 tag per day, to be used on medical rolls to heal injuries. 30 uses. You will need to remind us that it exists, otherwise no benefit.

Spoiler: Rune research

Water Rune
Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities.

Chakra Soothing Rune
Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities*.

*at the moment

Noburi thinks this one feels the most viable – as the rune applies its effect into the user's chakra system directly, instead of trying to route via recreating the water. Still, even if runes can connect to a human's chakra system (which is uncertain: as Hazō has no seal examples that can do so, and Noburi doesn't know enough about runes to judge), it would need to be an extremely delicate operation to not completely blow out said human's chakra system, and Hazō knows that runes so far have been more about overwhelming power rather than incredible precision.

Worse, Hazō doesn't even exactly understand what precise operation he's supposed to be doing, because of the level of jargon Noburi needs to use to explain the pool's effect. Hazō thinks he could revisit this once he understands the medical stuff a bit better.

Soothing Field Rune
Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities.

Crystal Recreation Rune
Hazō thinks he could maybe do this rune.

With the pool's chakra discount making everyone's daily training cheaper and Mari's generous donation, the team can spare around 900 CP per day. Distribute this among SC casts (now 120 CP base + 20 per clone), SC training (still 80 CP per training block), and rune infusion (290 CP per infusion day, or 350 if done by a shadow clone) as you please – including if you want to allocate any spare SC-casts to Noburi's shadow-clone-Vampiric Dew projects.

No SC training happened during this update as it took some time for Noburi to gather all the data he needed and for everyone to soak in the pool, Mari hadn't yet made her donation, and spare chakra went towards Hazō's expensive ES and SC-multithreading casts. You may start allocating this chakra with your next plan.

XP Award: 8 + 2 (brevity) XP

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Sep 21, 2024 at 1:00 PM .