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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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People keep talking about resurrecting Jiraya so he can solve all of our social and political problems. But there's a much simpler solution: just marry Ami. She is probably the best person in the world at solving social and political problems, and she's already engaged to Hazō!

I'm halfway serious about this. Ami could totally solve our problems if it was in her interest to do so, and I suspect that offering her influence over the deployment of the world-changing inventions we already have or shortly will have might be enough to interest her in such a partnership.

Now, I'm not suggesting that Hazō romances her...
 
FaintlySorcerous said:
I really really really want Jiraiya back.
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You and me both, friend.


Velorien said:
PONWOG Kei would be prepared to tell Hazō "I have/am thinking of learning a Nara ninjutsu that fills X niche", even if she didn't let him in on exact the mechanics.
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I agree with this and therefore it has two QM signoffs and is now officially WOG. Repeating for easy reference:

Kei is prepared to tell Hazō "I have/am thinking of learning a Nara ninjutsu that fills X niche", even if she doesn't let him in on the exact mechanics.



RandomOTP said:
I'll vote for any plan that has Hazou talking things out with Kei. I'll do my best to give feedback and help optimize, but the Big Sad and the Grey Fog have hit at the same time, so my usefulness may be questionable.

Edit: If your plan has this, ping me if you can. Haven't been following the thread discussion very closely these past few cycles.
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MrRobot said:
Take care of yourself, i myself am just stressed as hell right now, so same effective problem another direction.
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Please be well, both of you. I like you both and don't want you to feel badly.
 
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MadScientist said:
[x] Action Plan: Jiraiya, Please Work With Us Here
  • Continue work on Minato-chain/rift seal as long as EJ is comfortable.
  • Start looking for civilian hunters willing to take part in a dangerous and secret mission for the good of Leaf.
    • Further, ask for tips on survival without chakra.
  • Make preparations for what you will need to do to find the scar again after killing yourself.
    • Optimal non-sealed loadouts for equipment/rations.
    • Extra survival/navigation training.
    • Learn to make seal-quality supplies for if you lose access to paper/ink on the other side.
    • Anti-memetics protocols:
      • Notes/cartography on spare paper/own skin.
      • IN dictation (may cost chakra — inadvisable?)
      • Create landmarks/physical-geographical reminders.
  • Communicate to Kei:
    • We understand she's angry, and want to discuss this soon, at her convenience, once she's calmer [read: Vel's update].
    • She has a history off bottling things up until she explodes, and leaving others to deal with the consequences.
    • She is family, we value her and, independently, her judgement. We had sensible reasons for talking to Shikamaru instead of her. It was not a slight against her.
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@RandomOTP does this look good? Your section was a bit long, and I tried to summarise.
 
MadScientist said:
[x] Action Plan: Jiraiya, Please Work With Us Here
  • Continue work on Minato-chain/rift seal as long as EJ is comfortable.
  • Start looking for civilian hunters willing to take part in a dangerous and secret mission for the good of Leaf.
    • Further, ask for tips on survival without chakra.
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What does it means to ask civilian hunters for tips? How do you envision it?
MadScientist said:
  • Make preparations for what you will need to do to find the scar again after killing yourself.
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In case Hazo died, rather than Hazo committing suicide. I believe that Hazo committing suicide is ill-advised.

MadScientist said:
  • Make preparations for what you will need to do to find the scar again after killing yourself.
    • Optimal non-sealed loadouts for equipment/rations.
    • Extra survival/navigation training.
    • Learn to make seal-quality supplies for if you lose access to paper/ink on the other side.
    • Anti-memetics protocols:
      • Notes/cartography on spare paper/own skin.
      • IN dictation (may cost chakra — inadvisable?)
      • Create landmarks/physical-geographical reminders.
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Ok. Is that enough to write a plan for? I imagine a lot of these would be offscreened or boring enough. If we're going to train survival, then we need to spend actual points. We have Noburi's sisters coming. That's probably should be on screen, so we need to prep for their arrival. Tsunade apprenticeship for Noburi and Akane. So there's enough to choose from.

I would vote for your plan if you remove the reference to Hazo's suicide.
 
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[x] Action Plan: Jiraiya, Please Work With Us Here
Re: Selbsmord... You're not paranoid enough, nephew, frankly Hazō will probably die in another way any day now. Plus, I'm really not keen on going down the "doing it ourselves" route. If anything, aside from the other reasons... if we want to die, we'd better die shaking off some taijutsu rust. Still, knowing what we want to do if we get offed? Good stuff.
That said, do we need specifically civilians "ready to do dangerous and secret" things? If all we're asking them is survival tips we could just tell them it's for when we're low on ninja magic juice and throw mountains of money at them. Or do we want them to actually use heat-activated or pressure-activated rift inflation seals?
 
Lysbeth Succubus said:
[x] Action Plan: Jiraiya, Please Work With Us Here
Re: Selbsmord... You're not paranoid enough, nephew, frankly Hazō will probably die in another way any day now. Plus, I'm really not keen on going down the "doing it ourselves" route. If anything, aside from the other reasons... if we want to die, we'd better die shaking off some taijutsu rust. Still, knowing what we want to do if we get offed? Good stuff.
That said, do we need specifically civilians "ready to do dangerous and secret" things? If all we're asking them is survival tips we could just tell them it's for when we're low on ninja magic juice and throw mountains of money at them. Or do we want them to actually use heat-activated or pressure-activated rift inflation seals?
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We want civilian hunters with their high Survival skills and experience not relying on chakra in dangerous environments escorting the rescue party through naraka once the portal is open.
 
Given that Kei usually critiques other peoples plans. It's interesting that she has her own ideas of what could have been done. And also that she took initiative to start a plan of her own
 
Kei interaction advice: No amount of mere talking will help much. We'd made her feel that we distrust her once before, and that time Hazou has managed to patch things up with words; it won't work a second time. I suggest some dramatic costly gesture, like somehow precommitting to loop her in on our plans in the future whether we'll feel it's sensible or not. (She really loves dramatic costly gestures, if you haven't noticed.)
Velorien said:
Kei was no holy sage with the power to force open the eyes of the wilfully blind, but she would be damned before she allowed Akane, her ridiculous, precious Akane, to die of manufactured loyalty to a village that did not deserve her.
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Mari's bedroom, too, was still familiar from Snowflake's recent memories. Despite the unseasonable cold (which Kei was uncertain whether to blame on Hazō), the clothes scattered in a highly disorganised fashion were flimsy, with heating predominantly entrusted to braziers and a heavy quilt. Typical of Mari not to take proper care of her body when there was no one to remind her. Was she at least receiving sufficient nutrition, with no one to monitor her diet and suggest optimisations according to season and activity level? Kei made a mental note for Snowflake to remember to investigate the matter.

To clarify, Mari's welfare was in no way Kei's concern. She merely disapproved of inefficiency.
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Aww. Kei was extra adorable this chapter.
Inferno Vulpix said:
She knows us so well!
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No she doesn't. We wouldn't commit this obvious a blunder, with such tractable consequences! Nay, we'd of course recognize we're stealing clan secrets, so we'd attempt to develop a genuinely novel seal based on the insights gleaned from the Nara privacy seal, mentally poke the latter too much, figure out how to trivially re-purpose it as a WMD, and so accidentally grue all the Nara privacy seals.
 
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MadScientist said:
Start looking for civilian hunters willing to take part in a dangerous and secret mission for the good of Leaf.
  • Further, ask for tips on survival without chakra.
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I echo what @Lysbeth Succubus said above: we shouldn't be involving civilians this obviously. They don't need to participate in "a dangerous and secret mission"; they're civilians and are going to freak out over the idea of this when there are ninja who can also participate in such a mission, and we can't exactly reveal the idea of the environment sucking out all chakra without them worrying that whatever monsters exist there are going to carve through everyone in the party. Hazou explaining necromancy is going to only further convince them that Hazou is insane.

We should be asking them for tips and tricks about surviving while hunting, without mentioning "without chakra" at all. Civilian hunters are civilian hunters; they have no idea what chakra does beyond "makes you Superman".
MadScientist said:
Make preparations for what you will need to do to find the scar again after killing yourself.
  • Optimal non-sealed loadouts for equipment/rations.
  • Extra survival/navigation training.
  • Learn to make seal-quality supplies for if you lose access to paper/ink on the other side.
  • Anti-memetics protocols:
    • Notes/cartography on spare paper/own skin.
    • IN dictation (may cost chakra — inadvisable?)
    • Create landmarks/physical-geographical reminders.
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More serious issue: how are we going to locate the precise location of the rift scar, on the afterlife side? From my recollection the scar is situated in midair over a stretch of ocean, and if it's as sealed on the other side as it was on our side we will need a very effective seal to locate the scar's location.

Also a way to get Kagome to follow through with this, because Jashin knows he's going to freak out over Hazou wanting to kill himself. I still have no idea how we're going to get him to calm down enough to watch as his student peer family member cuts his own throat without him deciding that Hazou is having an Out!episode and restraining him for his own good.

Are we sure we want to go through with the fast-gambly method? If Hazou wakes up on the other side without materials to make seals OR chakra to infuse them, we're fucked.
MadScientist said:
Communicate to Kei:
  • We understand she's angry, and want to discuss this soon, at her convenience, once she's calmer [read: Vel's update].
  • She has a history off bottling things up until she explodes, harming herself and others.
  • She is family, we value her and, independently, her judgement. We had sensible reasons for talking to Shikamaru instead of her. It was not a slight against her.
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So I think how we communicate this to Kei is rather important: If we do anything short of SUPREMEOPSEC, and Asuma finds out that we were "talking to Shikamaru instead of her", killboxes will happen in short order.

I would also adjust the second bullet point to the bold red. It feels less judgmental than "leaving others to deal with the consequences", and would leave Kei in a more amenable mood to actually have a serious conversation with Hazou.
 
Updated

MadScientist said:
[x] Action Plan: Jiraiya, Please Work With Us Here
  • Continue work on Minato-chain/rift seal as long as EJ is comfortable.
  • Start looking for civilian hunters willing to take part in a mission at a later date, in which we suspect too much chakra-use may be inadvisable.
    • Further, ask for tips on survival without chakra.
  • Make preparations for what you will need to do to find the scar again after dying.
    • Optimal non-sealed loadouts for equipment/rations.
    • Extra survival/navigation training.
    • Learn to make seal-quality supplies for if you lose access to paper/ink on the other side.
    • Anti-memetics protocols:
      • Notes/cartography on spare paper/own skin.
      • IN dictation (may cost chakra — inadvisable?)
      • Create landmarks/physical-geographical reminders.
  • Communicate to Kei:
    • We understand she's angry, and want to discuss this soon, at her convenience, once she's calmer [read: Vel's update].
    • She has a history off bottling things up until she explodes, harming herself and others.
    • She is family, we value her and, independently, her judgement. We had sensible reasons for the decision we made.
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This was an exceedingly awesome chapter. Emotional. Impactful. Brimming with Kei displaying agency in ways that are sorely needed by the Gokētsu and beyond. Filled with little hints of stuff I was already expecting (KEI taking over the compound in the long run, Kei training in Nara techniques, Mari being not okay).

Which is the reason that it pains me to say that repeatedly off-screening most of our interactions with the other Leaf Clans makes it very hard to care about integrating with said Clans. For instance I don't think I can name a single Amori off the top of my head. I also still have zero idea how a day in the life of an average Leaf Clan civilian looks.
If the player base is supposed to put effort into seeing the perspective of Leaf Clan ninja, then we need to see them as people. And we frequently already struggle enough to do that with characters that were actually fleshed out to the point of explicitly explaining their reasoning or even being a viewpoint character once or twice.
 
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I don't think it's wise to talk to Kei about this, tbh. And even moreso, I don't feel it's wise to talk about it in that context. Like, uh...
She has a history off bottling things up until she explodes, harming herself and others.
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How does anyone see this as anything but a jab against them, much less someone like Kei?
 
faflec said:
More serious issue: how are we going to locate the precise location of the rift scar, on the afterlife side? From my recollection the scar is situated in midair over a stretch of ocean, and if it's as sealed on the other side as it was on our side we will need a very effective seal to locate the scar's location.

Also a way to get Kagome to follow through with this, because Jashin knows he's going to freak out over Hazou wanting to kill himself. I still have no idea how we're going to get him to calm down enough to watch as his student peer family member cuts his own throat without him deciding that Hazou is having an Out!episode and restraining him for his own good.
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These are questions we still need to work on. Note that I'm not advocating for attempting death before we solve them.

For the second, I think Kagome might be more reasonable about it than expected, given that they will both, at that point, hopefully, trust that the seal will work. Showing calm and thoughtful preparation is also likely to help. It's definitely dangerous, but more like a very risky mission than a (permanent) death-sentence.
 
Short plan because I suck at making them myself. Will add stuff upon request.

[X] Action Plan: The Story of Pasafutsu
Word Count: ???
  • Continue to be there for Akane. Don't respond emotionally if she gets angry, or blows up at us, or even breaks up with us.
  • Noburi: How's being the Toad Summoner going?
    • Can you ask Ma and Pa Toad for stories on Pasafutsu?
    • What about the previous Polemarch as well?
    • Has he found any good teachers? Can he?
  • Continue making arrangements for the move into Leaf, as per the previous plan.
  • Work on Minato-chain/rift seal as long as EJ is comfortable.
 
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[X] Action Plan: Continuing the Plan

WC:294

  • Be there for Akane. Don't try to make things better: just be present as much as possible.
  • Check/optimize all with Mari.
  • Start making arrangements for the move into Leaf
    • Delegate/defer to Gaku.
  • The compound:
    • Hire and pay civilian contractors so as not to run against the Merchant Council, but do what you do best with Earthshaping yourself.
      • Practice Earthshaping for art and architecture. We want a damn pretty compound.
      • Use clan colours for stone, smoothed together as if one stone. Take your time: do this slowly and correctly.
    • Plans include a statue of Jiraiya (styled as a tribute he'll appreciate) in the entryway, little waterways with (non-deadly) koi, and scattered, communal gardens.
      • Talk to Snowflake about the statue.
    • The compound should be open and welcoming.
      • Except Kagome's quarters, which will be defended to his satisfaction with Hazo's help (Earthshaping).
  • Visit other clan compounds for inspiration and to ensure Hazo's vision integrates with established Leaf norms.
    • Visit as many as possible, prioritizing Hyuuga and Uchiha
    • Do research on their architecture. Bring thoughtful host gifts - Earthshaped? - for the clan and your guide(s).
    • You're here to learn. Be humble. Temper your natural curiosity: be interested, but don't overdo it.
  • Prepare two celebrations for the compound opening.
    • 'Formal' opening - clan heads, Summoners, important political/community figures.
    • A more intimate/casual gathering: close friends and Goketsu allies, but folks you want to know better, too. Minori Minami's mother, Aburame lensmakers, Sarutobi sealmasters, your guides from architectural tours, etc.
      • Make them feel welcome.
      • The theme/vibe is integrating Goketsu into Leaf.
    • Think wedding ceremony vs. reception: formal affair/statement and then social intermingling of families.
  • Continue work on Minato's seals.
  • Ask Noburi how being the Toad Summoner is going. Has he found any good teachers? Can he?
 
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