Lost on the Road of Life (An AU Naruto Quest)

The journey south was relatively uneventful, save for some light snowfall on their way down that slowed them down. Only slightly, since they had to travel carefully as a result of Shizuk— as a result of Ameri's injuries.

It had taken a day to reach the moderately less expensive resort. Kakashi had handed Sugiyama a sack full of coin to rent a large room in the place for a few months, a mission that the ninja formerly of Demon Country accepted with gusto. Ameri had been inclined to take a nap after the room situation had been sorted out.

Kakashi, of course, had snuck in through the open window after the fact. He didn't plan on staying at the hotel for long, so it would be better if his presence went entirely unnoticed by the establishment's staff. He didn't really mind the inconvenience: it had been a while since he was able to be out and about without his chakra coils aching something fierce, and the snow was kind of nice to run around in too.

The flurries had reminded Kakashi of his time spent in Snow Country, slightly more than a year ago now…

I wonder what's happened there since I left. Something about Leaf using it as an outpost, or a colony of some sort?

Kakashi made a mental note to hunt down some information brokers while they were in Hotsprings. The country was an immaculate vacation spot that catered to the ultra-wealthy. That meant that a lot of their clientele were high-ranking ninja from all around the Elemental Nations, and while those shinobi would not be the type to go around blabbing their village's state secrets while taking a bath, Kakashi bet that a lot of the information he was looking for fell short of that category.

Kakashi blinked, and turned to regard Sugiyama, who was still unpacking in the corner of the room.

"So, how long until she's back in fighting shape?" Kakashi asked, gesturing towards Ameri's bedroom. "Roughly speaking, so I know when to check back in."

Sugiyama hummed. "It is difficult to give a direct answer to such a question. Who am I to decide where the currents of fate will flow?" Kakashi started to object, but the fortuneteller waved an idle hand to dismiss the statement before it could leave his throat. "It should be ten to twelve weeks. Perhaps slightly longer."

Kakashi fished into one of his jacket's many pouches— some still half-scorched from their fight with the ninja in Rain—before pulling out a storage seal. "Here. This should last you for a few months. Don't go spending it all at once."

The medic took it without hesitation. "This will be fine. Do I deign to ask what manner of shinobi skullduggery you are about to embark upon?"

Kakashi shrugged. "I figured I'd camp out in the woods for a while. Work on modifying some of my jutsu, I guess? Maybe pop into the main city to catch up on goings on."

Kakashi had briefly entertained the notion of running to Moon to hunt down the Rabbit scroll, but it was a bit of a risky proposition without any backup. No, it was probably a better use of his time for him to get some training in, in-between spending a few weeks working on his technique hacking skills.

"I see," Sugiyama said. They pursed their lips. "Speaking of ninjutsu, thank you for sharing that technique from before. I am honestly not sure that it is within my capabilities, but gaining the ability to walk on fire unharmed is certainly one that pique's one interests."

Kakashi had shared the seals for the Walking Wildfire technique with the Demon native a day or two ago, though he didn't really expect Sugiyama to learn the ninjutsu. By their own admission, they were not too keen on picking up more combat-oriented techniques, or even improving upon the meager skills they already possessed. Sugiyama had, in a very roundabout way, impressed upon Kakashi the importance of a medical specialist spending time to focus on their medical ninjutsu and treatment skills.

Kakashi wasn't too thrilled, but at the end of the day he couldn't argue with the logic.

Kakashi tilted his head. "Hmm. Yeah. Y'know, I was thinking…"

Kakashi paused and Sugiyama raised an eyebrow.

"Yes?"

"Well," Kakashi continued. "Do you happen to have any good fire techniques? I figure you have a few, one for manipulating fires, smoke, and so on. I think you might have an offensive technique or two, but I was mostly wondering if you were holding out on any really spicy ones?"

The eyebrow did not lower. "I do not have any combat techniques that I think you would be interested in spending time learning. I could teach you some of the others that I know, but it would require a few months of training."

Kakashi turned his head sharply at that. "What? A few months? Look, I know I seem a bit lazy, but I can learn ninjutsu faster than that by a leagues."

The fortune teller shook their head. "You misunderstand. There are some of religious significance that I would be unable to tell you about without instructing you in the greater mysteries of the cosmos. Such as the nature of the span of creation, the means of using flames and smoke to divine the universes trajectories, and other such skills of great import to a seer."

Oh. That makes more sense.

"On second thought, I think I'll pass on that," Kakashi said. He gave a lazy thumbs up. "No offense, but that sort of stuff isn't really my thing."

And I can't really spend months learning that. I have shit to do.

Sugiyama shrugged. "It is your decision, Copy Ninja."

Kakashi turned around and walked back towards the open window. "Anyway, that storage seal also has a couple meeting places and backup plans and instructions, just in case something happens. I'll be back in two months to check in. See you then!"

Kakashi jumped out of the window and vanished into the night.




Kakashi's hands flew through the modified seals. "Chidori!"

A massive amount of lightning-natured chakra coalesced around his hand. Kakashi manipulated a large portion of it into the familiar form of his signature technique's usual chakra construct—with some additional modifications that he had made months ago while learning summoning and traveling around half of the eastern continent. Kakashi compressed the excess chakra into a different chakra construct, shifting the electrified energy as best as he could around his forearm and stretching it into some form of gauntlet or shroud.

He charged forward towards a nearby tree trunk, pulling his arm backwards to strike—

Kakashi pulsed the lightning chakra around his arm as he was about to strike, attempting to amplify the strike by feeding his Chidori with chakra from the second construct that he created. As he did so, he could feel the electricity flow wildly and chaotically around his limb.

ZAP!

The jutsu exploded as his fist impacted the tree trunk, and not in the way he had expected. Obito's eye registered the event a split second before it happened, and so Kakashi was prepared. He Substituted with another nearby log, as threads of lightning chakra arced violently from the point of impact, lashing into the surroundings, and leaving smoking arcs of gouged earth and ruined tree bark in their wake.

"Always have an available Substitution target prepared while experimenting, Kakashi."

"Well, I guess that particular idea needs some work," Kakashi muttered. He paused, sniffing the air as the acrid scent of crackling ozone and burnt fabric made its way into his nostrils.

Burnt fabric? What?

Kakashi looked down to his side. The small ammunition pouch of kunai and shuriken he kept at his hip was riddled with a few scorch marks. The most noticeable hole was the size of his thumb, but the Sharingan's vision informed him that there were a few that looked to be barely larger than the head of a needle. Thin wisps of smoke were gently rising out of the pouch.

Kakashi quickly, but carefully, unfastened the pouch and stepped away as it fell to the ground with a thump.

The backlash from that half-baked attempt at a better technique probably blew into the metal there first, Kakashi thought. Kakashi wasn't sure if the weapons were safe to touch: charge could sometimes build up in a piece of metal, and lightning chakra could also super heat metal at times. Better to just leave the pouch alone for a while. Note to self: remove metal stuff before fussing around with this one in the future.

Kakashi walked out of the small underground burrow and strode over to the roiling campfire. The small camp consisted of a tent, sleeping bag, a few logs for sitting on and reading, and a sizable campfire. He had staked a few thick branches into the ground near the fire and hung a big cast-iron pot, the contents of which— some spices, seasonings, and the juicier bits of meat from the giant bear that had previously occupied the underground tunnel— were steaming and bubbling.

Kakashi dipped a ladle into the stew, waited a minute for the simmering liquid to cool, before sipping it. He grimaced. "Ugh. How the hell do people do this cooking thing? That tastes terrible. Maybe it just needs to cook for a bit longer…"

Kakashi dumped a few pinches of various seasonings into the bubbling cauldron, stirred it a bunch, before shrugging and heading back underground.

Let's change the ending seal. Tiger maybe? Could probably use another Horse seal.

Kakashi made the hand seals again. "Chidori!"

This time, he would try to keep the lightning chakra moving around in the second construct. If he just spiraled it around his arm, maybe, that would work? Minato-sensei had done something similar with the Rasengan, right?

Kakashi charged forward to strike the trunk. This time, his Chidori-enhanced strike landed just as he expected, and his fist sliced through the wooden log with little effort. He attempted to discharge lightning chakra from the secondary part of the jutsu as he brought his hand down, but it didn't seem to want to go anywhere. If anything it just spun around his arm faster as it leaked into the air.

Kakashi heard something on the ground move. It was a noise he wasn't expecting, so naturally, he vanished in a puff of smoke to be replaced by yet another log. He watched as a handful of electrified kunai and shuriken slammed into the log, sending up a hail of splinters as they did.

"Okay. Uh. Maybe I'll work on Radiant Bolt instead."




Kakashi stood quietly at the end of the bar as he sipped the grossly overpriced whiskey. He sniffled slightly at the springtime pollen that filled the air of the village he was currently stopping by— some minor suburb of Noburibetsu, the capital of the Land of Hotsprings and the home of the titular village— and considered his potential moves.

Two months had just flown by him as he was working on his various projects. He'd managed to complete two of them: the variant of Multiple Earth Wall that would produce a simple granite chair (designed for him to sit comfortably in, equipped with a cupholder and a small shelf on one arm to rest any books!) and a variant of the Radiant Bolt technique that was quicker to cast. The first had been a vanity project that mostly served as an excuse to dive into the creation and modification of Earth element ninjutsu. It was a simple project, given that it was a very basic modification to an already existing jutsu of his, and Kakashi managed to finish it with a couple days of work.

Modifying Radiant Bolt to be faster was significantly more challenging. The technique was meant to be cast from far away, and consequently the sequence of hand seals it utilized was incredibly lengthy and full of very specific patterns to stabilize the lightning chakra as it traveled that far. Radiant Bolt was terribly efficient already, in terms of the amount of chakra it required for the admittedly impressive results, but it just wasn't viable for Kakashi to spend several precious seconds going through more than two dozen seals, each with their own fiddly little chakra manipulations.

It had taken Kakashi weeks of banging his head against a tree trunk, but he'd managed a couple breakthroughs. Modifying the hand seals for Radiant Bolt was possible, and he shortened the sequence significantly by combining one or two homemade seals of his own creation. Kakashi was pretty happy with the results: he would probably be able to rattle off no more than a dozen seals to cast the new version of the technique, and it seemed to be more chakra efficient that way, especially when used at shorter distances. This came at the expense of reducing the technique's maximum range significantly, but that fit his needs just fine.

On the flip side, he'd been unable to make progress on his plans to further improve Chidori. The chakra manipulations involved in the technique were simply too complex to be easily modified— and Kakashi was beginning to appreciate the stroke of luck that he'd had in creating the technique in the first place, Minato-sensei's help on that notwithstanding.

Kakashi swallowed the last dregs of liquor from the glass before reaching over to the bottle that was left in front of him to pour himself another. Civilian bars that catered to ninja were convenient like that— if your establishment was not one of the more popular joints with the best reputation, you generally sold your booze by the bottle, and unopened ones at that. Some shinobi thought the paranoia behind the practice was a little extreme, but Kakashi bet that none of them had ever known a skilled mednin.

How many times did Rin poison our drinks for fun? Twice? Kakashi frowned. He could have sworn it was more...

…

…

…

"What the fuck am I doing?" Kakashi whispered. He had left the village for a reason dammit! He had people to find, conspiracies to uncover, and ninja to kill. While he had managed to get considerably stronger over the last year, was it really worth the price he had to pay? Or was he just engaging in some incredibly lengthy sunk-cost shenanigans?

…

…

…

Kakashi downed another glass and shook his head. The stuff was pretty strong, and had faint hints of apples and… something else that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

Alright. Enough moping. Let's take stock.

Ameri had more or less officially signed on to help him out, and she was looking for a pair of ninja— one was her little sister, and one was apparently a jounin. A jounin from Hidden Rain would be a great asset to the team if they could actually find them, but Kakashi wasn't too optimistic. It was generally pretty difficult to find a small group of ninja that were trying their best not to be found, and if the jounin was anywhere near as good at hiding as Ameri was, it would be a hell of a time tracking them down.

It might be possible with a squad or two of professional hunter-nin, Kakashi thought grimly. Hidden Rain probably won't be deploying large amounts of military assets outside of the country itself—not if they were still trying to keep news of the recent coup relatively quiet—but the odds of Kakaashi getting access to tracking specialists of that caliber? Nonexistent. Putting aside the hairy specifics of the quarry and the missions itself, most Hidden Villages weren't too keen on loaning out squads of ANBU-tier specialists to missing-nin in the first place.

Didn't Momochi Zabuza serve in the Mist Hunter-nin division for a while?

The Demon of the Hidden Mist was a resource that Kakashi potentially had access to, though he didn't really want to work with the psychopath too often. Though Kakashi had extracted one favor out of the man in exchange for the shitshow in Sea Country, Momochi had made it painfully clear that he was busy with his own objectives and that asking for his assistance regularly would cost Kakashi in turn.

Maybe if I could track down some of his rebel friends he'd consider it an upfront payment. Hmm.

Kakashi didn't have just one group of ninja that he was looking to track down either. The only tangible lead he'd gotten so far that matched with goings on in Leaf was that intel about the One Tails attack in Hidden Sand. The description had sounded suspiciously similar to what had happened in Leaf with the Nine Tails, all those months ago, and the missing sealmistress was something that he could work with.

Find the sealmistress or get further intel on what happened in Sand. Figure out next steps.

But to do any of that, he'd first need to get caught up on everything that had gone on in the Elemental Nations since he'd been gone. He'd bought some intel from information brokers in the east, but what he was given was a far cry from complete. He needed more, and it was certainly going to cost him.

I just need to know where to go.

Kakashi blinked away a slight headache and waved down the waitress. The girl bounced over to where he was standing, glanced down at the mostly-full bottle for a moment, before smiling at him.

"Would you like something different to drink, sir?"

Kakashi shook his head. "No, but I'd like to buy something else, if you're selling."

The waitress's smile turned brittle at the question, and her eyes widened slightly. "I'm… I'm sorry?"

"I need to get caught up on some local news," Kakashi said. He placed some ryo on the counter and leaned closer. "If you catch my drift."

The waitress blinked. "Oh. You just want to talk to some rumormongers? Black market knowledge? That sort of thing? Yes, I can give you some reputable names..."

Kakashi listened closely as the girl began listing several dozen individuals that he could purchase intel from.

---

Results:

Kakashi has successfully researched:

1. Stunt: A variant of MEW that creates a cool looking chair that is useless in combat save for showboating purposes.
2. Stunt: An improved version of Radiant Bolt that is quicker to cast, and somewhat more effective in close distances.

The specific mechanics will be made available shortly (I don't feel like formatting those to be legible to SV's forum software at the moment and delaying the update more) when I can get around to it. The MEW Stunt will cost 0 XP. The Radiant Bolt stunt will cost some amount of XP, but it will probably not be a massive amount.

Kakashi was unable to modify Chidori further at this time, at least with the specific project outlined.He spent some time trying, but gave up after nothing seemed to work. Perhaps if he had a higher Technique Hacking stat.


Voting time! What do you do? Here are some options to start you off:

[]Try to find some info brokers, but be somewhat frugal. Your not-so-bottomless wallet needs to remain somewhat full if you don't want to have to take the odd A-rank for a payday.(Spend 40% of your remaining cash)
[]Dig deep to try to acquire some solid intel. Money is meaningless unless you can use it for goods and services. Future you can figure out a good way to get more of it. (Spend 70% of your remaining cash)
[]Spare no expense in your pursuit of good information. It is quite possible that your success hinges on whether you learn a critical detail during your short stay here.(Spend 90% of your remaining cash)
[]Head back to check in on Sugiyama and Ameri. Perhaps Sugiyama would be able to assist you with acquiring intel?
[] (Write-in)


Remember, we use approval voting, so you can vote for as many plans as you like. Feel free to ping @Paperclipped or @MMKII to ask setting or detail questions that Kakashi could plausibly know.

Voting closes at 5pm, Pacific time, on Wednesday, November 23rd.

MMKII said:

Kakashi has successfully researched:

1. Stunt: A variant of MEW that creates a cool looking chair that is useless in combat save for showboating purposes.
2. Stunt: An improved version of Radiant Bolt that is quicker to cast, and somewhat more effective in close distances.

The specific mechanics will be made available shortly (I don't feel like formatting those to be legible to SV's forum software at the moment and delaying the update more) when I can get around to it. The MEW Stunt will cost 0 XP. The Radiant Bolt stunt will cost some amount of XP, but it will probably not be a massive amount.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

We're finished speccing these out. Here you go! These have also been pushed to the playerdocs (Stunts for the first one, jutsu doc for the second).



The 0 XP MEW Stunt has been added to Kakashi's sheet. Note that in the future he probably does not want to spend more time creating a drastically over specified version of a jutsu like MEW without a really good reason for doing so.

You may vote to buy the Radiant Bolt stunt that grants you access to the modified jutsu spec. It is 5 XP, which is not very expensive, and indicative of Kakashi having a solid amount of success throughout the project.