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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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eaglejarl said:
"Number two: If I lose the hat, the people at this table are utterly fucked. The only viable candidates after me are Shikaku and Hyūga...well, maybe Sunny, if she cashed in all her markers and took her seat as sole survivor of, and therefore head of, the Senju clan. Unfortunately, Shikaku wouldn't take the job if you put a knife to his throat, Sunny probably wouldn't take the seat and probably couldn't win the hat, so Hyūga's in. His clan has all but declared a vendetta against me, and by extension against all of you. With the power of the Hokage linked to his clan's economic and political strength, we'll be destitute in minutes and dead within a year. He'll put all of you on mission after mission, back to back with not enough recuperation time, until you're killed. Me, Hazō, and Kagome will be drafted into the sealing corps and assigned riskier and riskier projects until something kills us."
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...Long shot, but how likely is it that Hiashi's vendetta would be considered over now that Jiraiya's dead?
 
Anderkent said:
Duh, but I don't consider Hiashi our enemy
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Politically and ideologically he sort of is, at the very least a rival and staunch opposers to our main goals. Our clans have been at each other's throat since the clan even existed, he's not going to change his view of us just because Jiraiya is dead. In fact he'd likely like us even less considering no one in our clan is even from Fire, let alone Konoha.
 
Kiba said:
There was a long discussion about how some of the schemes that Jiraiya proposed probably isn't likely to work and so forth?
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I remember that there was discussion about how what some of what Jiraiya said might be exaggerated but there's a major difference between that and outright fearmongering.
 
The sky walker seals have been seen on the national stage, and they are one of our clan secrets.

We can't be kicked out until leaf RnD figures out how to make them, as I figure even Hiashi knows that. His objective shouldn't just be to kill us, but to get our secrets first.
 
Eh, Hiashi being against us is negotiable, that wouldn't make me deny him the hat categorically. The issue is that right now is a major opportunity for lasting change in inter-village diplomacy, starting with the relatively easy task of forming a strong long-term alliance between Leaf, Sand and Mist and even more significantly creating the foundation for a Ninja United Villages (international forum for diplomacy and negotiation) because hey, the Akatsuki are still out there, every one of us just got whacked over the head hard and if we don't at least talk to each other and avoid war for now then who's to say they don't just start overthrowing villages one after another with their seven(!) S-rankers? Hiashi is going to waste this opportunity, and it might not come again in our lifetime, or possibly ever if the gradual war of attrition that is ninja politics ends up killing off humanity soon-ish.
 
Back from watching Endgame and dove right into this and wow.

Did you guys manage to simulate the most narratively interesting outcome to the setting-deciding fight twice in a row? I applaud your luck, even as I mourn Jiraiya's death and Hiashi's survival.

It's not all bad for us, though. If Naruto joins the clan and Tsunade obliges Jiraiya's will and aligns with us, then Clan Goketsu has two S-rankers backing it, the two strongest ninja in all of Leaf pretty much. Hiashi-kage could harangue the Goketsu to an extent, but he can only push so much without risking the loss of Tsunade and Naruto's tacit support. I'd much rather push for Naruto or Asuma/Chouza for Hokage (or Tsunade in the very off chance she's willing to bite that bullet now), but even if that fails we shouldn't need to abandon Leaf for our own safety or anything.

We should definitely start reaching out to people. My vague list:
  • Goketsu's allies. We need to make sure we still have each other's backs.
  • Sasuke. Assuming Naruto joins the Goketsu, that's a strong connection between Lord Uchiha and the Goketsu. The Uchiha are still represented by a regent but Sasuke's opinions could sway their policy of abstaining.
  • People in Mist. Ren, Hana, Ami, whoever we can justify reaching out to. Leaf needs the Leaf/Mist alliance more than ever now but we don't have Jiraiya to push it through the last leg of the journey, so we should try our best to help out however we can. Making sure Leaf's alliance has the strength to fend off Rock and Cloud is just as, if not more important than keeping the Goketsu safe from Hiashi.

[x] Action Plan: Excuse Me, What Just Happened?
 
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[X] Action Plan: Alliance Against Akatsuki

Word Count: 420
  • Touch base with our allies. Offer our condolences.
    • Go to Tsunade first. Give her Jiraiya's letter.
    • Shikamaru, we know you're grieving, but we need to work quickly given the political situation. Is there anything the Nara had in place for this scenario?
      • Keiko, Tsunade, thoughts?
    • Find out what physical/mental state Naruto's in.
      • Debrief him with Tsunade and offer to adopt him as our brother.
      • If he's sane and willing, Naruto should make a bid for hokageship. Otherwise support either Tsunade (second choice) or Akimichi (third choice).
  • Read Jiraiya's will. Take stock of what he left us.
  • Debrief the clan on what happened.
    • Get Mari to give us political advice.
      • Double check with Tsunade and the clan first.
      • We need her manipulation skills for the good of the clan, and that if she believes she can't stop manipulating people she can at least manipulate [the bad guys] to keep us alive.
      • Offer to compromise: If she still isn't willing to directly manipulate people, she can at least teach us to do the same. If not, teach us politics/how to avoid manipulation.
      • Keep an eye on her. Order her to fall back if she's starting to get too mentally unwell, to not conceal her mental state from Hazou, and to present her true emotions and thoughts to him at all times when it is sufficiently private for this to be safe, regardless of what consequences this may have for either of them.
    • Speak with Kagome at length.
      • We understand if he's angry with us for sharing his seals with Jiraiya. Offer explanations, not excuses.
      • Get him Jiraiya's seals/the anti-Hyuuga seal if we haven't already.
      • Offer to have his seals declared clan secrets (so Leaf can't steal them).
        • Figure out how to do this.
      • Jiraiya named his ultimate explosion suicide technique after you.
  • Discuss with the clan on continuing the international alliance to hunt down Akatsuki.
    • Reasoning:
      • They're 7 S-rankers involved in an end-of-the-world conspiracy and took out most of the world's ninja forces.
      • They somehow managed to survive thanks to their boss, who told them to pursue peace "the hard way"...which probably involves gratituous violence.
      • This could very well demolish the hidden villages given that they now lack...almost all their elite ninja.
    • If we do this right, we might be able to extend the international peace for years, and possibly warm relations between the hidden villages.
      • Domestically, whoever holds the hat would have significant political points for stalling the next war, and for avenging our fallen ninja.
 
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@Velorien @eaglejarl @OliWhail Do we know IC that Pein had the Rinnegan, or even a doujutsu? Because if we do, we really need to be asking about who ended up with those eyes. Not even for the massive power-up; if we could convince some injured Leaf shinobi to give their life to resurrect our fallen, or even just Jiraiya...
 
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@faflec we do not hunt down Akatsuki. I fear that's too dangerous. Instead, we should go for a non-aggression pact.

And we should talk to them first.
 
Anderkent said:
Duh, but I don't consider Hiashi our enemy.
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Kiba said:
If we see Hiashi as only as our enemy, he will continue to remain our enemy. We need to consider every angle even if he's currently the big bad.
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See, here's the thing: I can't see any situation where he won't treat us as his enemy. ISC is a fairly decent power block, Goketsu is allied with ISC, and Tsunade is likely allied with Goketsu in some regard via the mutual connection to Jiraiya. The same is possibly true for Naruto. We don't really have a candidate for the hat if Tsunade doesn't step up, but we can throw some weight around. Hazou is acting head of the Goketsu, and Hazou is apparently an idealistic idiot who's expressed views diametrically opposed to Hiashi's.

In the current situation, the world is genuinely in a pretty precarious position. If Hiashi cares about anything enough to want to protect it, and if he has any beliefs at all, he has to act decisively to protect those things and to instantiate those ideals. Goketsu is a rival, and even if he isn't some flavor of xenophobe (which is, I will remind you, the default here, on top of previous statements and actions--and given that he's been in a feud with Jiraiya, his opinion of the new blood is going to suffer emotional bleedover), this means Goketsu is a potential obstacle. Does he have any reason to believe that Goketsu will throw their weight behind him? See above comments regarding idealistic idiots and expressed ideals: courting Goketsu is not likely to succeed. This means that, even if he doesn't believe we're a threat to Leaf (xenophobe mentality default!), and even if he doesn't believe we'll ourselves treat him as an enemy (consider the current temperature of the thread, and assume he's not an idiot), it's to his benefit to try to preempt us.

(Now, he can't do anything more actively hostile, because Tsunade is there. This averts the worst possibilities. It also means that we can't count on him overplaying his hand, and it means that if he genuinely believes we're dangerous, he's adding "might steal away the village's strongest current S-rank" to that list of possible impacts. This is not a good thing. Also, he knows about Skywalkers, and has just been reminded of their impact on warfare. Skywalkers currently belong to Goketsu, not Leaf. This is also going into his threat assessment.)

Hiashi was planning to make a bid for the hat before, so he's more prepared. Hiashi has more resources and more connections, including more people to implement any plots. Hiashi isn't dealing the unfortunate effects of being a foreigner. Hiashi knew about this before we did, by virtue of being in the room where it happened. And Hiashi is already acting to undermine us, just by virtue of being a basically intelligent person.

And you think now is a good time to hold out judgment? Sorry, but if you wanted to be in a situation where Hiashi wasn't some flavor of enemy, then you needed to press for different actions earlier. We don't live in that branch of the timeline.
 
Kiba said:
@faflec we do not hunt down Akatsuki. I fear that's too dangerous. Instead, we should go for a non-aggression pact.

And we should talk to them first.
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Might not have been clear enough, but my reasoning is to use Akatsuki as the fall guy to keep the world from devolving into a ninja world war. We don't have to hunt too hard for them, just to get the world to push its collective resources into fighting Akatsuki instead of fighting each other.
 
faflec said:
Might not have been clear enough, but my reasoning is to use Akatsuki as the fall guy to keep the world from devolving into a ninja world war. We don't have to hunt too hard for them, just to get the world to push its collective resources into fighting Akatsuki instead of fighting each other.
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That might be a good fallback later on if needed, but for now I think we should (after things are settled in leaf) focus on ensuring the alliance between Konoha and Mist and use that to foster good will between the five major nations. Despite the misery and death that occurred, the 5-village allied forces is still a momentous moment. We fought together, we died together, for once in possibly this setting's entire history the whole world came together to stop a common threat. You don't juat bleed together on a battlefield as big as the battle of the gods and not feel some slight sense of comradery. We can play off of that, spin it in our favor.

We all took hits, we've all some major players. Rather than simply go back to business maybe we can start talking and see if we can keep this from happening again.

Obviously this is a bit optimistic and won't be as easy as it sounds but this is our window of opportunity. We need to work as hard as we can to win back the hat as best we can and go from there.
 
Huh. In the past few months, every major village has lost a kage. And leaf alone has lost 2. That hurts from an internal consistency perspective.

faflec said:
Edit: Something else that occured for me that Mari can do: Learn Sealing. She apparently likes repetitive tasks, why not learn how to make explosives for the clan?
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Right, because our clan of sealmasters can't have fewer than 3 sealing experts. I hope nobody else dies, because Honoka is still a ways away :lol
 
Deathbybunnies said:
@Velorien @eaglejarl @OliWhail Do we know IC that Pein had the Rinnegan, or even a doujutsu? Because if we do, we really need to be asking about who ended up with those eyes. Not even for the massive power-up; if we could convince some injured Leaf shinobi to give their life to resurrect our fallen, or even just Jiraiya...
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Yes.

Velorien said:
The four-winged giant bird, with concentric circles in its eyes, followed the Mizukage relentlessly,
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Halberdier said:
Huh. In the past few months, every major village has lost a kage. And leaf alone has lost 2. That hurts from an internal consistency perspective.



Right, because our clan of sealmasters can't have fewer than 3 sealing experts. I hope nobody else dies, because Honoka is still a ways away :lol
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I suppose technically speaking, Jiraiya was never really Hokage proper, just interim Hokage organizing the search for Naruto for a few months, heroically dying in the process and leaving the way open for the actual Fifth Hokage to be elected.
 
Alright, I'm going to be doing a whip count for our two most favored Hokage candidates. Looking at which clans might vote for who.

Tsunade:
  • Base viability condition: We convince her to run and try to win.
    • Her best bet for enacting her uplift adjacent medical ideas is to become Hokage.
    • Look at the til'n'fills, making positive change IS actually possible.
  • Whip count:
    • Solid Hiashi (3):
      • Hyūga: Obviously
      • Inuzuka: Based on his reaction to Hiashi's rant he also seems to be a traditionalist.
      • Kyoshō: Deep financial ties with Hyūga.
    • Lean Hiashi (5):
      • Minami: They hated Jiraiya, and their vote was more against Jiraiya than FOR Hiashi, we don't know what they think of Tsunade.
      • Motoyoshi-Amori-Kurusu bloc
        • Motoyoshi: Seem more interested in money and their economic position than anything else. We could possibly sell them on the economics of uplift, maybe ISC could bribe them with economic concessions, or we could bribe with seals/pangolin money.
        • Amori: No info
        • Kurusu: Traditionalists, were opposed to Jiayra due to his lineage, lack of membership in a historical clan, and his disrespect for tradition. Tsunade is from Senju, one of the founding clans of Leaf.
      • Aburame: They voted against Hiashi last time but we honestly don't know much about their political goals and motives other than a desire for stability.
    • Lean Tsunade (2):
      • Sarutobi: There's a reason they weren't invited to the last vote.
      • Uchina: If Naruto can convince Sasuke to vote for Tsunade.
    • Solid Tsunade (5):
      • Gotseku: Obviously
      • Yamanaka: Due to ISC alliance with Gotseku.
      • Nara: Due to ISC alliance with Gotseku.
      • Akimichi: Due to ISC alliance with Gotseku.
      • Senju: If Tsunade is already running for Hokage, then I find it unlikely she wouldn't go all in and take up the mantle of the Senju.
    • Conclusion: 3 to 5 assuming all leaning clans abstain, 8 to 7 if they vote along my lines. The Motoyoshi-Amori-Kurusu bloc is critically important here, hopefully, we can convince to abstain. It helps that Tsunade is S-Rank.
Naruto:
  • Base viability condition: He's not a mentally broken mess.
  • Whip count:
    • Solid Hiashi (7):
      • Hyūga: Obviously
      • Inuzuka: Based on his reaction to Hiashi's rant he also seems to be a traditionalist.
      • Minami: They hated Jiraiya, and their vote was more against Jiraiya than FOR Hiashi, Naruto is more clearly Jiayra's heir than Tsunade. Doubly so if we adopt him into Gotseku.
      • Kyoshō: Deep financial ties with Hyūga.Motoyoshi-Amori-Kurusu bloc
      • Motoyoshi-Amori-Kurusu bloc
        • Same as above, but Uzamki was only prominent, not a founding Leaf clan.
    • Lean Hiashi (1):
      • Aburame: They voted against Hiashi last time but we honestly don't know much about their political goals and motives other than a desire for stability.
    • Lean Naruto (2):
      • Sarutobi: There's a reason they weren't invited to the last vote.
      • Senju: We'd have to convince Tsunade to take up the Senju mantle. Could use same persuasion strategies as above.
    • Solid Naruto (5):
      • Gotseku: Obviously
      • Yamanaka: Due to ISC alliance with Gotseku.
      • Nara: Due to ISC alliance with Gotseku.
      • Akimichi: Due to ISC alliance with Gotseku.
      • Uchina: Sasuke and Naruto are good friends.
    • Conclusion: 7 to 5 if leaning clans don't vote. 8 to 7 if they do. Same as above, but more clans in the Strong Hiashi camp. Bad idea.

So we CAN beat Hiashi. It's not even particularly unlikely, it just requires some leg work.

EDIT: Credit to Zerovirus from the discord for help with the basis for this. Refer to the following link as the source for my rationale
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest | Page 3469

EDIT 2: We NEED to talk to the Sarutobi, ISC, and Uchina. As well as seeing if Tsunade is open to making a bid for the hat and/or taking up the Senju mantle. Motoyoshi is worth making an effort to talk to as well, perhaps having Keiko and the Nara work on a pro-uplift presentation focused on economics, maybe getting Mari's input on the delivery.

EDIT 3: Added Amori clan as per word of faflec. Our position looks worse now, especially if the Motoyoshi-Amori-Kurusu bloc are solid Hiashi, which I'm not 100% sure about. Regardless it's still doable.

EDIT 4: I think the best we can hope for regarding the Motoyoshi-Amori-Kurusu bloc is an abstain, and that only in the case of Tsunade if she takes up the Senju mantle and we can sell Motoyoshi on uplift economics. Senju is one of the founding Leaf clans which should appeal to Kurusu a bit, even if Tsunade has a reformist/progressive herself. Now that I know that they're voting as a block, getting them NOT to vote for Hiashi should probably be our single highest priority.

EDIT 5: Looks like Tsunade is a better choice than Naruto.
 
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