Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

"Wandering wits, huh? Sorry kid, nothing that can be done."

"Really?" Hazō asked, face down on the table where she was healing him. "There's nothing at all we can do for him?"

He couldn't see Tsunade's expression, but he could still tell that the question had annoyed her. "You heard me. Why would I ever develop a treatment for something like that? No ninja's ever lived long enough to get it, and probably no ninja ever will. It's a natural part of aging."

"Okay," Hazō said. "Is there anything at all we could do? The man's a jōnin of unknown strength, with jutsu from traditions Leaf's never heard of, a summoning scroll to boot, and he's friendlier than anyone with his career has any right to be. Leaf will benefit massively if we can get him on our side."

"I don't know what you're expecting," Tsunade half-growled. "You said he's a danger to others when he has one of his fits? Fine, I'll pull out his chakra system. He'll still be able to drink and smoke when he has his wits, but if he gets mad, he'll just be an old man."

Hazō gulped. "He'd never be happy with that. He's already lost so much, I don't think he'd want to lose his chakra too. And the Bear Boss would never allow it."

"Then I'm sure he'll enjoy his retirement on the Seventh Path," Tsunade said. "Now, I can tell you were running around earlier by the tears on your side. Stop fucking doing that. Here, turn this way so I can reach."


"Wandering wits? I did look into it, after you told me about him once."

"Oh?" Hazō asked, trying not to look too hopeful.

Ino grimaced and shook her head. "There's nothing. I mean, maybe there was something before everyone died at Nagi Island and in the Collapse, but the records we have don't mention wandering wits, and Elder Inoru doesn't remember anything similar. I'd say it probably never existed, since so few ninja make it to the age where wandering wits happens, and even fewer develop it. Sorry, Hazō."

Hazō didn't say anything, just looking out over the western forests from their picnic spot in the mountains far above the Hokage Monument. Asuma's face was being added, alongside the long-delayed Hyūga Hiashi (whose visage Naruto had finally approved as one of several olive branches to Leaf's conservatives), but the workers had already retired for the evening.

"Is it possible to develop a cure?" Hazō asked. "I know your clan doesn't have a technique hacker right now, so it would be a long-term thing, but is it even possible in the first place?"

Ino shook her head. "I don't know. It depends on what wandering wits is. Does it happen physically, in the brain?" she said, tapping the side of her head. "Or does it happen in the mind and soul?" She tapped the center of her brow.

"I didn't get the impression that Tsunade had ever studied it," Hazō said, "and if she doesn't know, who would?"

Ino nodded, and looked down. After a second, she met his gaze. "I'll look into it," she said. "No promises, but I'll see if we can find a civvie with wandering wits and explore their mind. Maybe someone will be able to tell whether we can work on it at all."


"Huzu! Huzu, Huzu, Huzu, welcome back! It's been a while since you were here, hasn't it? A week or a month or something!"

"Quite a bit more than that," Hazō said, looking away from the Bear Summoner and sheepishly scratching at his neck. Technically, he'd tried to visit yesterday. Kumafuwafuwa had wordlessly turned him away.

"But here!" he said, quickly flourishing a bottle. "It's honeyed chrysanthemum wine – a rare thing even in the Elemental Nations. There's only a few bottles made every year. My-" Hazō decided not to mention his relationship with Ino to the old man he'd already talked about Akane with "-friend wanted to see what you thought."

"Ooh, I like the sound of that! Gimme!" Mareo raced down the hillside and skidded to a stop by Hazō, snatching the bottle from Hazō's hands. He seemed ready to unstopper the bottle and drink directly from its mouth, but stopped himself when Hazō held out a pair of finely-carved wooden cups.

"Not bad, not bad," Mareo said once he'd taken several deep gulps. The old man sat back on the grassy hillside and swirled the wine in his cup. "Though I can't make a judgment on one bottle alone. Tell your friend to send another! Or three!"

"I'll mention that you appreciated it, sir." He sipped shallowly from his own cup, barely enough to even taste the alcohol through the sweetness.

"Hah! I'll look forward to it. I need more tributes from you, young man, if I'm to continue gracing you with my presence and wisdom! Speaking of which, what in the Paths happened that kept you from visiting me for so long?"

"It's quite a long story," Hazō said.

"And we've got a long day and plenty of wine!" Mareo exclaimed, gesturing the bottle to the rich-honey skies overhead. "Let's hear your tale."

"Right," Hazō said, mentally organizing everything he wanted to say. "You remember how I mentioned the Dragons? Well, a lot of the Eastern summon clans got together to talk about how they wanted to deal with them, but their meeting pretty quickly devolved into a trade summit. I wanted to get them back into gear, so I decided to research some seals to make a dramatic entrance…"

Hazō laid it all out for Mareo. How his team had crashed the Conclave, freed an enslaved Condor destined for execution, and made many friends and enemies in the process. How Akane had disappeared, and how the evidence had slowly revealed that it was likely a sting operation meant to appear like a sudden death to chakra beasts. How Hazō had given out thousands of seals to clanless ninja in her memory, and how Hazō had asked Asuma to have Akatsuki investigate her death. How Hidan had come to Leaf, spreading the taint of Jashinism onto Hazō by association. How Hazō had caused a sealing failure, and how he'd been injured in rescuing his clanmate that had been lured by creatures in the depths. How Hidan had returned to Leaf to kill Asuma, how Akatsuki had extorted Leaf in the aftermath, and how Hazō had gotten the new Hokage elected. And how, finally, the Conclave had come together, setting the Clan Bosses on an inevitable collision course with the Dragons.

By the end of it, the bright light overhead had faded to a deep burgundy as Mareo listened to Hazō's tale. Kumafuwafuwa had warned Hazō that Mareo's good days could turn bad in an instant, but while the story of Akane's disappearance had killed the old man's cheer, he stayed intent throughout. With the bottle empty, he stared up at the starless skies overhead as Hazō's voice finally faded to silence.

"I'm sorry you had to face all that, Huzu," he said, finally. "I'm sorry you lost Akane. She sounded like a wonderful woman."

"She was," Hazō said.

"And sorry about your Hokey Guy too. He seemed like a decent sort."

"He was," Hazō said.

They sat in silence for a while longer.

In the end, Mareo spoke first. "It all comes from power. People always want power over others, and it causes so much nonsense, bullshit suffering. Even when you're the one with the power, it forces you to do things, it makes other people have expectations of you… Bah! What a useless thing. The Bears have it right. Don't try to hold power over others, let no one control you, and do what you like. What else is there in life?"

"I don't know, sir," Hazō said. "I'll have to think about it. I don't know if I can afford to just do whatever makes me happy, though. Not when the Dragons could eat the Seventh Path."

"Bah, it's not worth me worrying about it!" Mareo said, raising a hand to gesture vaguely at the sky overhead. "You want to do something, sealmaster? Sure, go ahead."

"Well, sir, maybe there is something you could do. I want to ask Kumafuwafuwa to join the Crusade against the Dragons. Do you have any advice on how I can sway him?"

"One word of advice," Kumafuwafuwa said, fading into existence from the night around them, "don't plan your manipulations within earshot of the target."

Mareo sat up just enough to thwack Kumafuwafuwa on the side of the giant grizzy's rump. "Hey! What did I say about you eavesdropping?"

Kumafuwafuwa turned away from Hazō to look deep into his summoner's eyes. "Mareo. I am incapable of not hearing the things you say while in my forests."

"I said not to do it! No excuses," Mareo said, making a second thwack with the wine bottle, this time between Kumafuwafuwa's eyes. The Bear Boss did not flinch. He continued to stare at his unruly summoner for several seconds, then turned his wooden gaze upon Hazō.

"I have heard the many things you've told my summoner about the Dragons and the Conclave, Dog Summoner. I am not particularly impressed."

"The Conclave has been less than impressive, sir," Hazō said. "I'm sorry for not asking you earlier, and for not asking you directly. I had to cajole and convince the self-interested, self-absorbed eastern clans. They need someone to hold their hand at every step or else they get caught in petty conflicts and the like."

"Conflicts that seem petty to you may be quite important to the people of this Path that must live them. Unless you mean to make light of the Condor's plight?" Kumafuwafuwa said.

"No," Hazō said. "The Condors really needed help, and we recently reached a compromise that freed the vast majority of the Condors from slavery. Unsurprisingly, I needed to step in and make that happen too. When I say petty conflicts, I mean disagreements on who exactly got cheated in a trade deal, or about whose grandmother was the first to give offense in some ancient spat. Faced with the annihilation of all the clans on the Path, it's irrelevant. The other Bosses are now preparing to set out to fight the Dragons. Will you join them so we can kill the Dragons without another clan falling?"

Kumafuwafuwa huffed. "I think not. As I said, the affairs you dismiss as trivial are important to the people of this Path, and I serve the Bears first and foremost, not the Arachnids or the Pangolins or the Dogs."

Mareo thwacked the Bear Boss in the side again. "Ah, lay off Huzu! He's a little dumb, but he's not trying to bring the damn clan to ruin. And you don't need to babysit me all the time. Why not go take a vacation to Arachnid? I hear it's nice this time of year."

"They don't have seasons," Kumafuwafuwa said. "Nor does the rest of the Path. And I have very little faith in the Dog Summoner's ability to discern the right course of action from the wrong one."

"Sure, like I said, he's a little dumb," Mareo agreed. "But that doesn't mean you can pick right by just flipping what he does. You gotta go and see what's happening if you want to understand it. Just pop through the Kitties' land and check it out, right?"

Kumafuwafuwa grumbled and glanced momentarily at Hazō. He then turned to face the barely-visible western forests, somewhere beyond which the Dragons rampaged. "I have heard all you have to say, and I am not convinced. Send Cannai to speak with me, young summoner. I will hear his words and decide then."

Hazō bowed. "I understand, Kumafuwafuwa. I will convey the message to Cannai."

Kumafuwafuwa looked at Hazō for a second longer. "Very well, young summoner. As you were."

By the time Hazō straightened up, Kumafuwafuwa had faded back into the night that enveloped the land.

Mareo was quick to stumble up behind Hazō and clap him on both shoulders. Hazō jumped and Mareo laughed, then started giving Hazō a slightly-uncomfortable shoulder rub.

"Don't worry about him, Huzu. He's a bit of a grump. I'm sure he'll have a friendlier chat with Cannai, whenever he shows up."

Hazō sighed. Mareo's hands were a bit too bony for the massage to feel great, but there were some sore muscles that-

He yelped and jumped away as Mareo's thumb dug into a burned patch of skin.

Mareo laughed. "Hah, sorry about that. You're probably used to gentler hands, huh? All those lovely lady summoners you surround yourself with but never let me meet, hmmm?"

"The only lady summoner touching my back is Tsunade," Hazō said. "And that's just to heal me. Leaf's various women, summoners or otherwise, are yours to seduce if ever you come by."

Hazō thought he felt the trees in the woods around him straighten and stiffen, as if they were the hackles of a giant bear preparing to maul him.

"Oy! Take it easy," Mareo said, hurling the empty wine bottle into the darkness. His expression softened as he turned back to Hazō.

"Sorry Huzu, but I can't go back to the Human Path. Ever."

"You don't have to if you don't want to," Hazō said. "But if you do, we can make it work. We can send a team to find you and escort you out, and we have ways of traveling that are absolutely safe – like seals that let people walk through the air where only the birds can fly. And even though Leaf has all the things you enjoy, like wine and women and whatever else you please, you don't need to spend all your time there. You can still spend most of your time on the Seventh Path and only visit Leaf when you want."

Mareo was still smiling softly as he sat back down on the grassy hillside.

"Nah, it ain't that simple. I used to have a clan, y'know? Long story, but I took the scroll and went off into the wilderness. They kept tracking me down and trying to trap me and take the scroll back. Never worked of course, and I got better and better at keeping away, but never good enough to stop them from finding me again. Now, I've been off the Human Path for what – Ten years? Twenty? They've definitely found my little hut and buried it under a dozen feet of mud. If I went back, the aetheric doohickey wouldn't properly form around my body and I'd get squelched.

"They already tried it against me once – luckily I came back midway through and was only shunted a few feet, but even that felt like it damn-near ripped me in half. If I was them, I'd have mudded up the whole area, then planted a bunch of trees on top of it so it just looked like another patch of forest. I'd send a young one through every month or two to check and see if the Scroll popped out, because you know it'll take more than a bit of aetheric finickiness to damage that old thing."

Hazō considered that. Unsummoning and returning to the Human Path was always just a thought away for Hazō. Could he live decades on this Path holding a kunai constantly to his own throat, only a thought away from killing himself? Worse, Mareo probably had a reflex to unsummon if he'd ever fought battles on the Seventh Path. If he was ever in a flighty mood when his wits wandered, he could kill himself in an instant.

Hazō suddenly understood. Mareo would try to unsummon himself if his mood ever turned for the worse, so he couldn't be allowed to try. Kumafuwafuwa had probably taken away Mareo's right to return to the Human Path, so that the elderly summoner wouldn't accidentally kill himself. No wonder the Bear Boss was so protective and never strayed far from his summoner's side. Mareo didn't have the summoner's primary escape tool.

"So, if you wanted to come back to the Human Path, we'd need to find your old clan, negotiate with them to find the location of your old hut, then clear it away for you to pop back?"

"It's not a big deal, Huzu," Mareo said, grinning his toothy smile. "Look, I got plenty of friends around the Bears and I got you to deliver all the wine and sake I need. I don't even particularly want to go back to that rotten old Path. Unless you're only interested in getting my scroll, are you boy?" Mareo's expression snapped back to teasing curiosity.

"Nothing like that," Hazō said, raising his hands. "I just wanted you to know that we have plenty of comforts in Leaf that could make your life better."

"I'll take your word for it. Actually, no! I'll take proof. Come back with more proof next time, Huzu!"

"I'll do my best, sir."


"Well, well, well," Noburi drawled, slowly looking up from his plain wooden desk to see Hyūga Neji appearing in a cloud of pale orange smoke. "Look who came crawling back."

"You saw Kameon disappear," Neji said with a glare, as he gently set the small turtle down in the water tank they'd been provided in the dome-house. "If you did not anticipate my arrival, that reflects only your own inability to make trivial inferences. Now quickly, I need chakra."

Noburi raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms. "I didn't hear a certain special word."

"Gōketsu, must you insist on this song and dance every single time, or-"

"I only insist that my distressingly good acquaintance Hyūga, born of the most blessed and noble clan in Leaf, remember the basic manners he was surely taught sometime in the last year."

"Fine. Gōketsu, please give me chakra, now."

"Hmm, I'm not really feeling it," Noburi said, tapping his chin gently. "How about a 'may I'? That sounds much more polite."

Neji exhaled shortly through the nose. "Gōketsu. May I please have some chakra?"

"That's better," Noburi said, reaching down and filling a cup of water from the barrel at his side.

"'Distressingly good acquaintance'?" Neji asked, once he'd downed the chakra water.

"I think anyone would be distressed to make your acquaintance even once. I must have had a lot of bad karma in my last life for the Sage to make me meet you again and again and again."

Neji huffed, and disappeared in a puff of smoke.


"What are these papers you're studying?" Neji asked as Noburi walked back into the Pangolin dwelling.

"Popped back while I was taking a leak? Don't bother trying to peek. This is the only piece of a real man's equipment that you need to worry about," he said, slapping the side of the barrel as he bent down to dole out another serving of chakra water.

"Oh, and those papers?" Noburi said while Neji shuddered and drank the water. "They're nothing much. Just some old medical studies that Tsunade wanted me to review and analyze. She and Orochimaru spent a lot of time collaborating and made plenty of discoveries that haven't been widely spread about."

Neji inclined his head slightly, looking back down at the notes. "The Sannin are letting you follow in their footsteps?"

"You too could achieve this if you had natural talent, any semblance of a work ethic, and a bloodline that wasn't useless."

Neji swiped his hand as if to parry, his face clouded in anger. "How was I to know that the cavern would somehow interfere with the Byakugan? Your clan's useless reports mentioned nothing of the sort!"

"Well, Hazō's and Kei's bloodlines worked fine in there, and I bet mine would work great too. Sounds like it's a problem with the Byakugan," Noburi said. He leaned in and stage-whispered. "It's fine, Neji, really. Plenty of chūnin have had long, successful careers with second-rate bloodlines – or even no bloodline at all!"

"Gah!" Poof.


"You know," Noburi said, glancing at the puff of pale-lime smoke that signaled Neji's appearance, then returning to face the ceiling as he swung back and forth. "When Hazō asked me to babysit your team, I really had to think about it. On the one hand, I could spend the day at the hospital with sick, angry patients that smell awful, fight back to various extents, and are never happy with the healing I give them. On the other hand, I could spend probably around ten minutes total with you, chilling out on the Seventh Path. I even could space out the exposure into tolerable two-minute chunks. It was a pretty close thing."

Neji didn't respond, instead dropping a burlap bag, which opened to reveal a collection of glimmering, faintly glowing crystal.

"Nice," Noburi said, grinning slightly. "Guess Lee and Tenten picked up your slack then, huh?"

"I'm not the slacker here," Neji said, looking pointedly at the hammock Noburi had stretched out in the Pangolin burrow. "There's more to harvest, but this is all I can reasonably carry in a single summoning."

"Well, I'm glad you managed to avoid any danger," Noburi said, ladling out another cup of water for the unworthy Turtle Summoner. "Even without your Byakugan, I guess you're a natural at dodging fights, huh?"

Neji raised an eyebrow as he drank. "The golems weren't that tough."

He disappeared.

---

Without any ready solution to Mareo's wandering wits, Naruto declines Hazō's request to have an erratic, jōnin-level ninja within even spitting distance of Leaf's walls. He grants that if Hazō finds a way to render Mareo safe to the people and ninja of Leaf, ideally without requiring too much of Leaf's manpower in maintaining the solution, then he would be glad to have Mareo move in. Naruto notes that it's probably not a good idea to give Mareo a cottage near Leaf and let him come by on good days – when other villages hear about his existence, they may just assassinate him and steal the Bear Scroll if he's not within Leaf's walls.

Emissaries have been sent to the Sharks, though their territory is massive and not well-connected. Hazō has elected not to inform the Porcupines about the Dragons' most recent movements, given that they're about as far from southwest Arachnid as physically possible.

Team Hyūga has delivered hundreds of pounds of crystal via the Seventh Path – with volume seemingly similar to the crystal heart that Team Gōketsu previously found. We will specify how many infusions-worth of crystal this is at some later point. While tired, they suffered no injuries that will last longer than a day or so, and can continue delving if needed.

Naruto has issued the orders to comply with Akatsuki's demands. Clan Gōketsu, alongside the few clans on the council with jōnin-level sealmasters, has been ordered to prepare notes and blanks of two jōnin-level seals to give to Akatsuki. Additionally, all summoners have been ordered to open an embassy with the Sharks. This will happen without your intervention for the Dogs and the Toads, as they border the ocean, but Kei welcomes suggestions on how the landlocked Pangolins might open an embassy with the Sharks. Finally, Naruto has announced that Jashinism is now a recognized religion in the Land of Fire, and that Jashinists are invited to register with the Tower. Yuno is moderately likely to register at dawn.

Hazō has received an order to prepare a briefing regarding dimensionalism and the rift, including to propose plans of varying levels of risk/reward. Naruto expects this briefing reasonably soon.

Rumor has it that Orochimaru has returned.

XP Award: 4 + 2 (brevity) XP

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