Talking to Asuma about stuff
I do not think now is the right time to ask about being special jonin. It does not meaningfully impact the goal of defeat dragons, and make us look bad. Both Asuma and Oro can vouch for the dragons, and Oro for the complexity of the great seal, and we can have our skills back up our sealing talk. And considering we were just given a couple million Ryo? Any argument about needing it for clan functions and more political power is going to look very bad.
After this is all over, I imagine Asuma will offer it to us anyway. And it's going to be better for us if he initiates they conversation. If he doesn't, then we can bring it up, I think
Asking Asuma about reaching out to other villages/AMI is worth talking about, I think. Not telling him to do it, but actually talking through the cost/benefit analysis with him. Akatsuki members have sealing, or scrolls, though I don't know that any of them have both. But we'd need a clear picture of how they can help. Sharks close to the Butte would be the biggest I can think of, if the boss shark could fight one dragon (or keep it busy) while in its own territory as the rest of the everyone does a thing.
We could bring up Akane getting a scroll for EM, but I'm very cautious of that. First, it'll take her months to learn summoning, and she was just assigned a genin team, which makes that a lot harder and less likely to pay off. Also, the closest clan option would be bear, but we don't want to kill him off for a few reasons.
Getting Asuma and other summoners to weigh in at the conclave would be helpful, and it sounds like Asuma is in for that. If he's trying to get the snake and slug bosses there, he's seriously pushing from his end.
Getting Dragon parts to show the conclave would be a good idea. They could be the ones Oro has, or they could be temporarily borrowing parts that Arachnid holds onto. But we really need to make clear how much effort went into taking out that one, and how much harder they get after others are killed, it seems. If we're dealing with a gradual death resistance, killing them all at once/close enough gets more important.
Asking for help getting any mineral/material that we could play with for shaping/Chakra conduction sealing understanding would be very helpful, I think. That one seems a pretty easy ask, and it's very clearly for solving the problem.
I think asking about the existence of emergency McGuffins is fair. We don't need to necessarily know what they are, but knowing if Asuma has a trick or card up his sleeve helps as make more informed choices.
I think asking if there's any remotely relevant Lore he could tell us is perfectly fair game, but I don't think we'll get much back on that. We're the expert on the ground here. And trying to get unrelated Lore DEFINITELY counts as a power grab.
In theory, techniques to help us survive/get away are helpful, but considering how far above us dragons are, I don't think there's much that's going to really make a difference, especially given us only having Earth element.
We could bring up the Oro thing. I'm...I think we'd need to phrase it right, since in theory Oro gaining power is Leaf gaining power, but Asuma already knows he's having issues keeping Orochimaru in line. I don't love it, but if we hint to Asuma that Orochimaru wants us to make him his own great seal, but by doing so for *reasons* we'll attract dangerous attention, he may be able to help us out? Considering his stance with the Kei situation was "I wish you well, but there's not much I can do", maybe prevention is best here. Even if it's just making sure Noburi is kept busy by Tsunade, which shouldn't be a big ask.
It really is a shame Hazou is further behind the FOOM track, since that extra resolve would probably come in handy dealing with the dragons. That said, my single biggest piece of input is ES 50 GET.
