Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

The meditation chamber was silent aside from the faint whisper of Kagome-sensei turning pages in the book of summoning theory that Lady Tsunade had thrown at Hazō's head.

The silence was relaxing, a break from the scatter and flutter and hurtling of his daily existence as a Clan Head. The chance to sit with his teacher, answer questions as needed, and make explosives, a seal so reminiscent of nights on the run when there was nothing to worry about except horrific death that it was pure bliss.

"What's this word?" Kagome-sensei demanded, stabbing his finger at the page.

It took Hazō a moment to decipher Lady Tsunade's handwriting. "Apportementu. It's the process of passing through the opening of the aetheric channel."

"Hm. And what's this bit about xephtatic mentation?"

"Mental state is critical throughout the process, but especially during apportementu. As the portal is opening you need to maintain a mental state that balances opening as the primary ideation with creation and acceptance as the secondaries. Like all of this, the methodology needs to be personalized, so I can't simply give you a visual to cling to. It's got to feel right to you. Not just 'good enough', right. Start thinking about those three ideas. Come up with all the connecting concepts you can that work with each pair and with the triad, then try to combine those concepts in different ways until something clicks. When I finally got it, I felt the way I feel the first time I manage to make a new jutsu work. There's that instant where your body and mind and chakra all align, where a barrier disappears inside your head. It's like that 'aha!' moment of making a discovery in seal research. Take ten minutes and then we'll talk about what you came up with."

Kagome-sensei obediently closed his eyes and concentrated, lips moving silently as he tried different combinations of images and mantras.

Hazō went back to his seal scribing, allowing the Iron Nerve to produce his clan's signature problem-solving technique as his thoughts wandered.

Every seal was unique to every sealmaster. Oh, they were identical enough to be identified at a glance by anyone who already knew the pattern, but the precise details needed to be personalized to one's own chakra patterns. That was what seal research was, at base: Learning which amount and placement of feathering, pressure, and degree of curvature was required for one's chakra system to accept the blank as valid.

Hazō's pattern was beautiful, to him. Every seal was beautiful to its creator; one's chakra would not accept it otherwise. That put sharp limits on how Hazō's seal designs could be constructed, since lines could not cross unless the design permitted, and that made it tricky to connect disparate bits of a seal without crossing or using routes that did not have the smooth and elegant grace necessary for him to find them attractive.

He watched his hand independently scribe the one tricky part of his explosive design, a section where the brush had to pass between two already-drawn lines while remaining equidistant from them.

What would it be like to create the Great Seal, or some other three-dimensional seal? Line layout would be simpler, since you could go under and over existing lines. On the other hand, there would probably be more zones of interaction, so maybe that would balance out the layout benefits. One thing was for sure, there would be way more space for power intakes, smoothing, and focusing, all of which would likely lead to more powerful effects. Hazō didn't even want to imagine the amount of power that the Great Seal contained, especially not after performing his first and only experimental investigation.

One of the seals that Kagome-sensei had produced as part of their research on the rift was a repurposed version of the chakdar seal. It detected levels and fluctuations in ambient chakra—very, very subtle ones—and had a series of dots that would light up depending on what it sensed. It was fascinating to walk around with it and watch the interplay of the lights. They were tapped directly into the fundamental underpinnings of the universe, a pinhole window onto a level of reality that could be accessed in no other way. Unfortunately, the seal had a range of only a few inches and it was so fragile that it would stop working if chakra was actively manipulated anywhere within ten or twelve feet while the seal was active. Also, they were single-use and inordinately fiddly, meaning slow to produce.

Hazō had taken a handful of those devices to the Great Seal to investigate what was going on with it. After the usual sacrifice of a few dozen scorpions and hornets, he had managed to reach the base of the butte and use a combination of Tunnel Excavation to create a hidden tunnel upwards, followed by Earthshaping to make tiny openings to the surface so that he could reach through to emplace seals without exposing himself to view. The combination meant that he could reset the HOWS with less risk than he had faced until now. Of course, nothing about the Great Seal could pass by without weirdness, and this was no exception: the Tunnel Excavation had formed in a slight corkscrew pattern instead of the normal straight shaft, but the stone of the butte had been very hard to manipulate via Earthshaping. Still, he persevered and made the necessary passages. Once that was done and the HOWS emplaced, Hazō had brought out one of Kagone-sensei's chakroscope seals to see what the ambient chakra looked like.

It had instantly burst into flames.

The burst of light and smoke had attracted the attention of one of the Dragons and Hazō had needed to spend ten very tense minutes hiding inside the rock while the monsters sniffed and searched. Unable to find anything, they had breathed ravening flames across the surface of the stone, melting it into taffy that had congealed only slowly back into solidity. Once they eventually grumbled back to sleep, Hazō had retreated back down his tunnel and, once at the base of the butte, crept away until it was safe to unsummon himself. Perhaps he could have gone sooner instead of hiding in the stone of the butte, but after noticing the unpredictable effects of jutsu near the Seal, Hazō had decided to never summon or unsummon himself within a mile of the thing.

Anyway, the important part was simple: The Great Seal, and presumably any other three-dimensional seal carved from stone, could absorb and use vastly more power than a normal 2D paper seal. The Great Seal actually distorted the very fabric of reality around itself, allowing Hiding Like a Mole to travel through stone instead of only earth, causing Tunnel Excavations to appear in a corkscrew, and setting fire to detector seals. Great power, great risk. Just like all seals, except more so.

"Okay," Kagome-sensei said, opening his eyes. "I've got it."

Hazō pushed his wandering thoughts aside and leaned back to listen to his teacher.


"Good afternoon, My Lord."

"Ugh."

"Difficult day, sir?"

Hazō leaned back in his chair, pressing hard on his forehead in a futile attempt to get rid of the pounding headache. "Yeah," he said. "I had breakfast with Lee."

"Oh dear."

"Yup. After three hours of innuendo and shouting about youth, it turns out that Youth and Uplift have very little in common. I think. Actually, I have no idea."

"Sir?"

Hazō dropped forward in his seat in frustration, accepting the headache as unavoidable. "He can't even define it! Exercise is youthful. Green spandex is youthful. Honesty and loyalty are youthful. Hard work is Youthful. These are all positive traits, sure, but they aren't coherent. There's no organizing principle."

Gaku reflected on that. "Perhaps something like 'good character', sir?"

"Sure, but what exactly does that mean? I punished Haru severely because he killed a bunch of yakuza in order to protect Gōketsu. Am I being unyouthful for punishing a clan mate who was acting in loyalty to his clan, or am I being youthful because punishing him disincentivizes other people from killing civilians?"

"I see your point, sir."

"Plus, it's entirely self-directed as far as I can tell. It's about how an individual should act in their daily lives, whereas Uplift is about the sort of society we want to construct."

"Those do seem rather divergent. Complementary, but divergent."

"I know, right? Anyway, file all that in my personal journals under 'failed experiments'. Moving on, what have you got for me?"

Gaku smiled. "I think I may be able to improve your day, sir."

"Oh?" Hope fluttered in his heart.

"After you sign these, of course." He plomped eight inches of forms on Hazō's desk.

The teenage Clan Head glared at his Chancellor with an only mostly lack of seriousness. "That was some serious bait and switch there, Gaku."

"I aim merely to serve, My Lord. I will say, however, that I am confident you will enjoy the results after we get through all this." He glanced at the water clock in the corner. "Provided we can do that in the next hour. I'm afraid that if we aren't there by one then it will have to wait until tomorrow."

Hazō sighed and raised his brush, skimming quickly through the first item on the stack. It was the monthly assessment for food expenses, meal plans, and gastronomic health issues throughout the clan. There was an acceptable number of usages of the words 'grease fire', 'twisted belly', and 'the runs', so he signed off and moved it to the side. The next form related to the collection of waste from the latrines and sale thereof as fertilizer.

Sigh...


"Was I correct about the improvement to your mood, sir?"

"All the yes," Hazō said absently, bending far back to stare at the sky where a wood-and-silk construct lumbered in clumsy yet sustained circular flight.

"Thank you for making time for us, My Lord," Michiki said, twisting his hat nervously in his hands. "I hope you are pleased?" The words were uncertain despite Hazō's visibly astounded wonderment.

"Yuh."

Michiki smiled tentatively but continued waiting, twisting his hat and sweating despite the winter chill.

Eventually, Hazō tore his eyes away from the incredible sight. "How is that working?"

"It's the fin, M'Lord." Michiki backed a few steps, making abortive gestures of invitation that were desperate not to be seen as too demanding. Hazō followed his head of aerial research willingly enough as the man led him to where the rest of the research team waited around the second hazōlator (as they insisted on calling it). The men were all scrubbed clean enough to shine and dressed in their very best clothes, cleaned and pressed.

"This is the Mark Eighty-Nine, My Lord," Michiki said, gesturing to the airframe. "Or, rather, the Mk89a. The 89b is up there." He gestured towards the sky.

Hazō studied the Mk89a. It was nothing but a giant triangular wing with an open-mouthed tube slung underneath it. Levers bent around in front of the tube like the mandibles of an insect and were mirrored by an arrangement of footpedals and straps at the back of the tube. A triangular fin stuck up from the top rear of the wing. The wing itself was a wooden spine with spars extending to the sides, all of it covered in tight-stretched silk fabric.

"This is very different from the earlier designs," Hazō noted.

"Yes, M'Lord. We noticed that the spirits seemed to prefer larger wings, so we started making them larger and larger until finally they overtook the entire craft. We also noted that the spirits grow irritated quickly if asked to carry too much weight, so we did everything we could to shed weight. We experimented with making it out of paper, but that proved too fragile. We tried canvas, but that failed in a variety of ways. That spider silk that you so generously provided us was precisely what we needed. May I say, My Lord, that it was astoundingly perceptive of you to recognize its properties. Thank you very much for your consideration."

"Yosh!" The entire research team bowed until their backs were parallel to the ground.

"Right," Hazō said uncomfortably. "So tell me more about this. How does it work? How is that thing staying up there?"

"It's the sacrifical flames, My Lord." Michiki gestured to the vast array of bonfires dotted around the meadow. "I'm sure you remember the occasion on which you wisely suggested that during research it's important to try everything that might work. Well, one day we were discussing a separate issue and one of the men commented on how cold it was and how much he dislikes the cold. That allowed me to recognize that perhaps the air spirits dislike the cold as well, so we tested building sacrificial fires to propitiate them. We discovered it works quite well; they are very grateful and are far more willing to bear the hazōlators for long periods provided that the pilot remains over the flames, where the spirits may keep warm."

"How long has he been up there?"

"Just over forty minutes, My Lord. The key is the fin, you see." He scurried over so that he could gesture to the vertical triangle on the vehicle's spine. "It provides the pilot a clear way to communicate with the spirits. When he tilts the fin to one side or the other, the spirits understand the request and permit the hazōlator to turn." He hesitated. "It...is still a bit unstable. There have been a few incidents of lithobraking that rendered our no-launch windows wider than we prefer, but we always managed to come back from it and improve the next time."

"That's all anyone can ask," Hazō said, nodding. "How does it handle bad weather?"

"Poorly, My Lord. The silk stretches when it gets wet, which can lead to suboptimal performance characteristics."

"Meaning...?"

"Um...maximum flight times that are shorter than desired due to unexpectedly increased descent rates."

Hazō frowned, parsing through the words. "Do you mean 'crashing'?"

"...Yes, My Lord."

"It's okay to just say 'crashing', Michiki."

"Yes, My Lord." The fibers of the hat were beginning to separate from the intensity of the nervous twisting.

Hazō looked up again, studying the soaring, well, lumbering creation above him. It was slow, it was ungainly, and it wobbled like a drunken farmer on the way home from the tavern, but it was flying.

His heart soared alongside it.

---

Author's Note: As a general rule, it is not possible to make yourself pass out from using jutsu except through inordinately bad luck. If you don't have enough chakra to pay for a technique then the technique simply won't activate and the chakra isn't used. The only way you could make yourself pass out from jutsu use would be if you happened to have precisely the amount necessary, but that's very unlikely given that costs on jutsu usage are actually slightly variable from casting to casting. This is a well-known fact of ninja life, so Hazō did not ask Noburi about it. You tested various jutsu with him, casting until you couldn't cast again, then refilling and doing it all over. You have a moderate amount of data on a few different jutsu. (NB: The Shadow Clone is unique (as far as Hazō knows) in that it will always activate regardless of how much chakra you have and will simply kill you if you don't have enough.)

You had Mari give OPSEC lessons to the clan newbies. They are experienced ninja so it wasn't particularly necessary but they understood the desire.

You spoke to Asuma about paying for a dog to go to Pangolin Territory for future summoning. He's okay with it. You have an appointment to talk with Cantelope and Cantilever tomorrow evening Human Path time, midafternoon Seventh Path time.

You sent a letter to Mareo, the Bear Summoner, along with some chocolates. You have not had a reply yet.

This update covered 14 days.

XP AWARD: 31

Brevity XP: 10

"GM had fun" XP: 0

• Chakra science is fun to write, but yours was predicated on an invalid assumption (that you could make yourself pass out from jutsu usage) so there was nothing to do.
• @Velorien enjoys writing Rock Lee, whereas I find him exhausting. You can tell because of the fact that I Gaku'd my way out of that one.

Various clan members have been deployed on various missions at Asuma's request. We'll be rolling for everyone's survival after some discussion of the odds. Mission counts are based on the assumption that people survived through the first ones and will be modified if it's later determined that they died.

• Akane and Yuno have been out as a team three times, running patrol and deconfliction missions (i.e. "go here and kill everything that moves unless it's a citizen of Fire")
• Mari was out for 4 days with a KEI chūnin backing her up, details classified
• Mari was out for 3 days with a KEI chūnin backing her up, details classified
• Noburi powered another Zoo Rush, although the details were classified and you haven't heard what happened
• Haru was teamed with a KEI chūnin and sent to demolish a civilian mill town in Rock

Again, we'll be rolling for everyone's survival after some discussion of the odds.

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Wednesday, December 8, 2021, at 12pm London time.