Agree to agree. Getting more information is great. Leaving on long adventures without investigating this and starting a background process feels bad. Cursed knowledge. Chanting Moar Koi Moar Koi Moar Koi mutates into sounding like Hi Mark.
Noburi was in a great mood tonight. Nagasaki was going to make it to his wedding with all four limbs attached, in part thanks to Noburi getting those rock splinters out of his leg. Nara Yukiko had given him tips on scalpel technique, and their improving professional relationship was a decent consolation prize for the fact that he'd never dare talk to her outside the hospital again. Mari was out entertaining or "entertaining" potential MARI investors, and that meant tonight they could have dinner with Kei without any issues. Finally, Kei was bringing a mystery guest who wasn't Tenten, and with no other signs of the Apocalypse visible, Noburi could look forward to a fun time and maybe even a new friend—and if they turned out to be a cute girl, the fact that she was connected to the Pangolin Summoner should hopefully stay Yuno's hand.
Noburi was in the middle of wondering what miracles of the kitchen Kagome had in store for them tonight (since Noburi had got in late, he'd been excused from sous-chef duties) when the front door opened and all thought disappeared from his mind.
Wavy chestnut hair cascading down to her shoulders. A seasonal yellow kimono, with brown columbine patterns, that hinted at a slender yet well-muscled figure. Assets that were neither too big nor too small. Sparkling eyes the colour of hot chocolate. A cool neutral expression with a hint of mystery. This girl wasn't cute but hypnotic.
Sudden crushing agony, as if his right hand was being ground into powder in a vice, shocked him back into self-awareness. He looked around to see Yuno next to him, giving him a fond smile even as the odds of him ever being able to hold a scalpel again steadily decreased.
Noburi was in trouble.
In the background, Kei was saying something. Noburi forced his attention off his hand and onto her.
"Everyone, please allow me to introduce Fujisawa Miyuki, my new girlfriend."
Fujisawa Miyuki
Looks: *****
Pros: TBC
Cons: Instant death by Yuno, instant death by Kei, does she even like guys?
Noburi was in a lot of trouble.
-o-
Hazō was happy for his sister. Very happy indeed, and not cripplingly jealous that the heavily-introverted, socially-awkward girl apparently had the kind of game that mere mortals like him, with their paltry two girlfriends, could only dream of.
It wasn't that strange, he reassured himself as he greeted Fujisawa and guided her to her seat. Kei was one of a handful of openly gay women in Leaf. Of course she had an advantage over the closeted majority when it came to attracting attention in a very limited dating pool. There was no significance to the fact that girls were apparently queueing at her door while he, with his masculine good looks, his overflowing charisma, his Mari training, and his constant presence in the public eye, was limited to the two to whom he'd been guided by a strange and circuitous fate.
How would Akane and Ino feel about—
No. Bad boyfriend. If he had time to think about romance (which he did not), he was to spend it supporting Akane through her difficulties, or for that matter Ino (who wasn't a clan head lucky enough to make it through the war with her entire family untouched). Besides, they hadn't been a triad for so long that he could count on Ino feeling secure if a stranger were suddenly added into the mix.
Fujisawa, as expressionless as ever, gave a deep bow to the Gōketsu before handing him a sheet of paper torn out of her notebook.
We have met before, [a doodle of a figure with an axe facing four identical enemies] but please allow me to introduce myself again. My name is Fujisawa Miyuki. I have the honour of being in a relationship with Lady Nara. [a doodle of two heart symbols overlapping like one of Kei's set diagrams] Thank you for your hospitality.
In the bottom right corner, there was a circle made of two curved arrows pointing at each other, which Hazō took to mean "pass it on". He handed it to Kagome-sensei, who stared at with a puzzled frown before handing it to Kei, who passed it to Yuno. Yuno barely glanced at it before passing it to Akane, past Noburi. Akane gave Fujisawa a broad, welcoming smile.
"You're most welcome," Hazō said. "Thank you for joining us tonight. It's good to see you again."
Fujisawa reached for her notebook again, only to be interrupted by Kagome-sensei.
"How come you don't talk?" he asked her. "Are you bad with words, like Tenten, or did you lose your—"
"Kagome!" Kei snapped, but it was too late. Though Hazō couldn't read Fujisawa's reaction from her face, her entire body had gone stiff, and she'd stopped opening her notebook.
Akane, the family's voice of sanity, intervened before the cold radiating from Kei could extend to the kitchen and freeze the soup. "Kagome," she said patiently, "please think before asking questions. Making people you don't know talk about things they find difficult is very unyouth—"
She didn't finish the sentence. Her face darkened. A stranger might not have noticed (hopefully, Fujisawa hadn't), but to someone who knew the usual, radiant, Akane, it spoke louder than a Dragon's roar.
Saving throw failed. Hazō prayed in the depths of his heart for Mari, who could turn this situation around with a few easy words, to suddenly come back early and save them.
She did not.
Hazō watched Fujisawa scan the room. Kei, furious. Kagome-sensei, perplexed and mortified. Noburi, with an eerie fixed smile. Yuno, cold-eyed. Akane, gloomy.
Fujisawa's gaze stopped on Hazō.
Hazō wants Miyuki to relax and stay for dinner while he fixes whatever is wrong with everyone. He attacks with Rapport. Miyuki defends with Empathy.
Hazō spends 1 FP to invoke "Team Uplift" (to avoid hurting Kei by alienating her girlfriend) and 1 FP to invoke "(Formerly) Marked for Death" (to improvise in an emergency; I'm not sure the situation is intense enough for missing-nin alertness to be relevant, but I'll be generous).
Miyuki spends 2 FP to invoke "Behind Invisible Walls" and the scene Aspect "Abysmal Atmosphere".
Miyuki wins. Hazō takes 5 stress. He receives the Mild Social (Mental) Consequence "Humiliated Before a Guest".
Hazō certainly wasn't going to count on Kagome-sensei to pull off a smooth apology himself.
"I'm very sorry for my clansman's rudeness, Fujisawa," Hazō said. He stepped away from his seat at the head of the table and gave her a fifty-degree bow, a properly humble apology rather than what a normal clan head would give a clanless ninja. "Please believe me when I say no insult was intended. Why don't you take a seat, and we'll get started on dinner? I promise you, once you taste Kagome-sensei's cooking, you'll be willing to forgive him even high treason."
Fujisawa opened her notebook. Her brush moved slowly.
I suddenly feel unwell. Please permit me to head home for the night so that I may rest and recover. I apologise for inconveniencing you. I hope we can see each other on another occasion.
Hazō felt a flush of shame. As the host and the head of the family, he was responsible for the others' behaviour. He should have anticipated and prevented any problems, and been ready to cover for the others' mistakes. He should have had a plan ready to navigate if not this particular situation, at least the category of situations where a guest came with a tripwire that Kagome-sensei couldn't be allowed to trigger. He should have been Mari.
"Please, Fujisawa, there's no need—"
"I will escort her home," Kei cut him off coldly. "I hope you enjoy your meal."
She guided Fujisawa out, pausing to give Kagome-sensei a look of such venom that it was a wonder he only cringed instead of being liquefied on the spot.
Hazō allowed himself the luxury of staring after them for three seconds before turning back to the room. Kagome-sensei, perplexed and mortified. Noburi, with an eerie fixed smile. Yuno, cold-eyed. Akane, gloomy.
It was going to be a long night.
-o-
Hazō has spent 2 FP and gained 1 FP for receiving a Consequence, as well as 1 FP for surviving an update with 1-3 FP.
TBH Kei knows Kagome and should have at least briefed her new girlfriend on him or maybe said something to her family before bringing her over. This is her fault. She is terrible at socials, she knows this.
Welp... Might've expected this from Kagome, to be fair. And if Akane were operating at 100%, she probably would've been able to smooth things over (especially if Noburi had been able to think with the head that holds his brain).
Luckily for the Goketsu, we know that Kei loves Kagome (defending her Uncle against Shikamaru's slander). We also know that Kei is well aware of the struggle that Akane's been going through. So I think that we can count on Kei to defend Kagome and Akane, and try to smooth things over.
That said Noburi was openly ogling Fujisawa (or looking anywhere but Fujisawa after being caught openly ogling Fujisawa) while Yuno stares daggers/axes at Fujisawa for being a woman (which seems to be all it takes for Noburi, tbh).
So while we might be able to count on Kei to defend Kagome, Akane, and maybe even Hazou... Yeah, not a great showing from the Goketsu. Especially if Fujisawa went through something particularly traumatic to lose her voice (which, ninja deathworld, we can assume that was the case).
Not to mention the war just ended, and so everyone's dealing with frayed nerves and raw grief. So people are going to overreact and be highly strung until they've had time to decompress and grieve.
---
Note: the fault does lie, partially, with Hazou. He is the Clan Head and he should have better socials than this. Delegation is fine, until it's not. Supporting social stats when?
Note: the fault does lie, partially, with Hazou. He is the Clan Head and he should have better socials than this. Delegation is fine, until it's not. Supporting social stats when?
Small note on this, we had got a -3 on the dice roll, and ended up taking 5 stress. If I understand the mechanics correctly, a single net (+) result on our roll of four 1d3s would have allowed us to pass this encounter, because our result would be +3 and that would've beat Miyuki by one.
That seems to imply we've got a handle on our socials right now, we just had some bad luck here.
Small note on this, we had got a -3 on the dice roll, and ended up taking 5 stress. If I understand the mechanics correctly, a single net (+) result on our roll of four 1d3s would have allowed us to pass this encounter, because our result would be +3 and that would've beat Miyuki by one.
That seems to imply we've got a handle on our socials right now, we just had some bad luck here.
Our guest is extremely sensitive about the topic of her lack of voice. She'd very much rather nobody talks about it. Kagome, not having previously met her and failing to read the social cues, simply out and asks her about it in a fairly insensitive manner. She's displeased by this and leaves.
This reflects on us because hospitality rules suggest that the host (Hazou, as clan head) is responsible for ensuring the guest (Fujisawa) has a pleasant time. It's our job to make sure she's safe, taken good care of, and generally appreciates her time under our roof. As such, while it was Kagome who upset Fujisawa, it was Hazou who was in charge of ensuring nothing like this would happen to Fujisawa while she was here.
It may not matter all that much in the end, or it might matter. If someone noticed Fujisawa leaving in a bad mood so soon after she arrived, they might be able to guess that we failed in our duties as host, and Fujisawa may or may not tell people the relevant information outright. 'Hazou failed in his duties as host' isn't a mortal blow to our reputation in Leaf, but it's definitely not a good mark on our record. The fact that we already have a reputation for social failures like this (making something like this not overly surprising, and thus not a big impact on our image) would be counterbalanced by the fact that we don't have much wiggle room between our current reputation and 'socially incompetent', which we'd rather avoid.
So again, might matter some, might not matter much at all. The biggest impact is probably with Fujisawa, since I don't think she'll be inclined to meet the family again anytime soon, which isn't ideal but, well, it doesn't compromise any of our plans or anything. Less than ideal, but we'll live.
. If I understand the mechanics correctly, a single net (+) result on our roll of four 1d3s would have allowed us to pass this encounter, because our result would be +3 and that would've beat Miyuki by one.
Hazō wants Miyuki to relax and stay for dinner while he fixes whatever is wrong with everyone. He attacks with Rapport. Miyuki defends with Empathy.
Hazō spends 1 FP to invoke "Team Uplift" (to avoid hurting Kei by alienating her girlfriend) and 1 FP to invoke "(Formerly) Marked for Death" (to improvise in an emergency; I'm not sure the situation is intense enough for missing-nin alertness to be relevant, but I'll be generous).
Miyuki spends 2 FP to invoke "Behind Invisible Walls" and the scene Aspect "Abysmal Atmosphere".
Hazou took 5 stress, meaning Miyuki rolled 24+(13 to 15) Empathy 37 to 40. Given that she used 2 FP to double invoke, she probably had 30 Empathy, resulting in:
Hazou took 5 stress, meaning Miyuki rolled 24+(13 to 15) Empathy 37 to 40. Given that she used 2 FP to double invoke, she probably had 30 Empathy, resulting in:
Of course, this assumes Miyuki got a fudge die roll of 0, which may or may not have happened. For all we know, she did:
Or:
tl;dr Miyuki has an Empathy level between 19 and 42.
