Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Noburi knocked at the door.

"Come in," Tsunade called through the brass-studded walnut door, her sharp voice barely muffled by the solid wood.

Noburi entered and quietly removed his barrel and the Toad Scroll, as Tsunade looked up from her papers.

"It's you," she said. "Your brother promised me money, and Shizune is asking about it. Tell him to sell off whatever damn gemstones he needs to, because lives are on the line if Shizune can't source the medicine she needs to deal with the coalbelly sweeping through southern Fire."

"I'll let him know, ma'am. Is that all?" Noburi asked. The messenger that had called him to the hospital had been scared halfway to death (thankfully, Gaku had a remarkable collection of peppermint tea to calm her down), so Noburi decided fewer words meant less chances to piss Tsunade off.

Tsunade scowled. "No, that's not all. You, for whatever reason, are the talk of the town. Everyone's stumbling over themselves to tell me what an amazing medic you are and how stupid I am for not taking you as an apprentice. I'm sick of it.

"You're not an amazing medic. I tested you, and you fucked up the surgery on that guy's leg, and he was going to bleed out if I didn't step in. You don't make the cut. You understand that, right?"

Noburi tried to keep his pain off his face. "I understand that, ma'am."

"Good," she said, expression still dark. "Then why are people shoving you in my face all the time? Have you been pulling strings and spending favors? Because you have to know what happens when I feel like someone's trying to manipulate me. They only ever try once."

"No, Tsunade," Noburi said. "I haven't been trying… anything, really. I've just been working at the hospital and studying the materials you gave me. Have I done anything wrong?"

"You…" Tsunade fixed him with his glare, and Noburi had to look down. When he looked back, her expression was softening – less diamond and more solid steel.

"No, you didn't do anything wrong," she said with a slight sigh. "Fine. I've made my decision."

"You're not going to be my apprentice, so don't get ahead of yourself. But you're… you're a decent medic. I've seen you work. And by the look of it, you've spent a lot of time practicing with your bloodline, which looks pretty useful for hospital work.

"I've been… convinced," Tsunade said, with her voice bitter like thistle, "that your bloodline has potentially valuable medical applications that are far from fully explored. So, I intend to explore it. We're going to spend the next several months studying your bloodline, trying to figure out what it does and how it does what it does. I'll work with you to develop new unique medical ninjutsu, and if we're lucky, we'll come up with something truly incredible. Worst-case, you get some jutsu and a much better understanding of your bloodline. Is that clear?"

Apparently, Tsunade had taken it upon herself to fulfill his greatest dreams as a Wakahisa-born medic instead of leaving Leaf yet again. And sure, it wouldn't be an apprenticeship by name, but given how much he'd learned during his last time shadowing her around, he had no doubt that he'd advance by leaps and bounds while working personally with the world's greatest medic-nin. Except…

"That sounds incredible," Noburi said honestly. "But the Toad Sages have offered to train me-"

"Oh, fuck off," Tsunade said. "Tell those old geezers I told them that. I'm going to be in Leaf for the next few months no matter what, and I don't appreciate having my time wasted, Noburi. Either you're going to show up at the Senju estate tomorrow morning so we can start figuring out your bloodline, or you're going to go figure out a way to make sure that your damned name never gets spoken within my earshot again. Got it?"

So, either permanently torpedo his relationship with Tsunade, or scorn the incredibly prideful Toad Sages' offer of training to work on the medic skills that they didn't really respect. Fantastic.

"Understood, ma'am," he said. "I'll let you know by tonight."

"Good," she said. "Dismissed."


"Hazō," Naruto said, glancing up from the technique scroll he had been studying in the tiny, cramped Tower meeting room. The meeting room was actually a decent size, but was overtaken by a tropical-looking tree in a large pot in the corner whose broad, waxy leaves filled most of the head-height area of the room.

Naruto noticed Hazō studying the plant and shrugged apologetically. "It was a gift from the Noodle Country ambassador who was here last week, and this was one of the sunnier rooms where I could have put it. Just watch the roots. They get excited when they smell a new person."

Hazō blinked in surprise as he saw a few gnarled roots poke out of the soil and orient themselves towards him. He shook it off and took his seat.

"Have you spoken to Shinji about his public brawling yet?" Naruto asked.

"Actually, not yet," Hazō said.

"Damn it, Hazō! This shit matters, if you want to be a decent clan head. You can't just ignore everyone in your clan until they become a problem."

"In fairness," Hazō said, crossing his arms, "I've been busy preparing for my mission."

Naruto nodded, faux-anger fading off his face. "I know, sorry. A couple clones just finished setting up the privacy seals."

"And I did talk to Shinji, though it's hard to be too mad at him when I know you were the one who set him up," Hazō said. "I'm just finishing up a couple things that I figure you ought to know about."

"Right, that makes sense," Naruto said. "If you'll give me a second…"

A short sequence of ninjutsu later, Naruto leaned back in his chair. "What's up?"

Hazō looked away from the roots that were steadily creeping towards him on the floor. "Two things. First, I know you asked me not to give Orochimaru any of your father's original work, but I want to try trading the initial seals in your father's jinchūriki seal chain in exchange for some more chakra-conductive stone for runecrafting. Those seals are useful for building up skills in advance of the rift project, and if I needed the experience, Orochimaru will definitely benefit from it. Don't worry, there's nothing particularly useful in there, just some chakra sensing stuff that I'm sure he already has better versions of, and I'll give him Gōketsu-copied notes rather than your father's stuff so he hopefully won't be able to tell that it's connected to the Fourth Hokage."

Naruto sighed. "Yeah, I'd prefer if you didn't, given that my dad's seals are apparently something really special if I read Asuma's notes right. That said, I trust you can manage the OPSEC appropriately, and if you need the fancy rocks, who am I to second guess you? Just make sure you actually hand over the core rift stuff that Orochimaru needs, okay?"

"Got it," Hazō said. "The second thing is actually related to that."

"Oh?" Naruto asked.

"The thing is… the rift seals are clan secrets, per the agreement I made with Asuma. I realize the fate of the world is at stake, so I'm going to trade them to Orochimaru willingly, but I just wanted to let you know that otherwise, this would have been you ordering a clan head to disclose clan secrets."

Naruto raised his eyebrow. "Really, Hazō? You want to go there?"

"I'm not going anywhere," Hazō said, stifling a faint hint of amusement at the similarity of Naruto and Asuma's reactions. He kicked the roots away from where they were trying to wrap around his ankles. "I'm not trying to make any fuss, I just wanted to let you know what exactly you're asking me to do."

Naruto shook his head. "First of all, come on. I've seen enough of you trying to squeeze jutsu and seals out of solid stone that I'm sure you'd be trying to do the same to me right now if it weren't for the fact that you have no real negotiating position without going to the Clan Council and blowing a bunch of important secrets sky-high. Honestly, I'm not even sure they'd side with you – Asuma had a soft spot for you, and he probably shouldn't have let you take Tower seals and make them a clan secret. People might not like the favoritism."

"The notes were Tower property, and we didn't make them our clan secret," Hazō said. "It was just the seals we made with our own work, that no one outside our clan could make. That's normal, and that's just how clan secrets work."

"That's not how it works when any other sealmaster decides to take research notes from the Tower, but whatever," Naruto said. "The big thing is – that's my dad's stuff. I respect the Third a ton, but I don't agree with his decision to take big chunks of my dad's sealing work and make it property of Leaf. That's clan secret theft, plain and simple. Sure, the Third had reasons for it, but… why in the world would I think Asuma would be able to let you claim my dad's stuff as your clan secrets?

"Actually, picture this. Some tragedy happens to, say, the Nara Clan, and the Hokage decides to take copies of some of their shadow jutsu for preservation – whatever, just assume the reason for taking the jutsu makes sense. Later, a different Hokage decides to hand out those jutsu to another clan so they can make modifications. After all, it's not like the jutsu are being used otherwise, right? Lastly, the other clan comes back, saying that their modified shadow jutsu are their own clan secret, that no one else has a right to. Technically? Okay, sure, it matches the dictionary definition of a clan secret. But how are people going to think about it in practice? How is a hypothetical Nara Hokage going to feel?"

"I see," Hazō said. "I don't think the Nara Hokage would feel very charitable to the other clan. Thank you Naruto, I think I understand better now."

Naruto leaned back in his chair. "Good. I don't want to be an asshole about this, or run back Asuma's decisions too much. As long as you're making progress towards recreating my jinchūriki seal, feel free to reap all the benefits of the intermediary seals for your clan, no tithe to the Tower required. But I should make expectations clear – as long as you're working on my dad's stuff, I expect that you'll actually comply with my reasonable orders about what to do with it. And like you said, 'the fate of the world' is a pretty good reason for me to ask you to share your seals. Are we in agreement there?"

"We are, sir," Hazō said, standing and bowing, almost hitting his head on a broad leaf. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a couple more roots crawling up the back of the chair towards his neck.

"Good," Naruto said. "Good luck with the rest of the preparations for your mission. Let me know if you need anything else."


Once Orochimaru had given Noburi the basic training exercises for forming chakra scalpels in the bright and sunny training field as far from the Basement as reasonably possible within Leaf, the Sannin didn't bother talking with Hazō. Instead, he efficiently set up a perimeter of privacy seals. A hemisphere around an unassuming patch of grass was turned into a warped, distorted haze, and Orochimaru looked at Hazō expectantly, then disappeared into the dome.

"Looks like I need to go talk with him," Hazō said. "I'll try to do it in terms he understands. Hopefully I don't get eviscerated."

Noburi grunted, staring down at his hands with intense focus, where pale green wisps were periodically appearing and failing to coalesce into any kind of scalpel. "Good luck with that."

"Thanks, bro," Hazō said. Kei had already struck a few lines from Hazō's conversational flowchart that she had deemed likely to traumatize Noburi, given the way that Noburi would have had to scrape Hazō's organs off the grass in order to get Hazō to cremation. Hazō still planned to ask questions close to Orochimaru's core identity, if in a more gentle way. He couldn't predict what would happen.

"Given recent revelations," Orochimaru said as Hazō entered the warped and hazy hemisphere, "I have taken the liberty of bringing my privacy seals despite your brother's refusal to meet in a suitably secure location. I am certain that additional time thusly gained will be used on a matter of great import that you have previously hidden from me: the imminent resurrection of Pain."

"Yes, Lord Orochimaru. In fact, I'd first like to discuss that matter. Here is the research work that Naruto has ordered us to give up to you," Hazō said, laying down a thin stack of papers on the table – the work of a single week studying the first of Kagome's sketched-out rift seals. "Here is additional, highly valuable preliminary and preparatory work we did ahead of working on the main rift seals." He laid down a second stack of paper, easily ten times larger – all of Kagome's original research notes for the first eight seals in the Fourth Hokage's jinchūriki seal chain, produced over the course of six months.

Hazō would have traded his own research notes instead, but Akatsuki had stolen his originals and Hazō hadn't had the time to make new copies. As it was, after copying out his recalled progress on the initial rift seal from months ago (unfortunately, he'd done the research with a shadow clone, so the Iron Nerve hadn't helped him much), he'd spent all day reviewing Kagome's work and expunging any reference to the Fourth Hokage, further seals in the chain, and any possibility of a connection with technique hacking. It had left quite a few holes. Hazō could only hope he'd gotten all of it.

"I'd like to trade this additional preparatory work, along with the otherwise-secret location of a rift in Iron suitable for basic experiments, in exchange for more substrate for runecrafting. Perhaps however much substrate you can produce from five of Noburi's barrels?"

Orochimaru raised an eyebrow. He reached across the table, claiming Hazō's very thin notes on the rift seals and flicking through them with impressive alacrity. After a few seconds of review, he set the notes down and reached for the second, larger stack. He stopped himself before he grabbed it, then turned his outstretched hand around to display his open palm.

"If you would," Orochimaru asked. "That I may judge the quality of what you are bargaining over."

Reluctantly, Hazō handed Orochimaru the stack.

Orochimaru flipped through the papers, slowly at first, then rapidly accelerating once he hit the second seal and realized they were just more research notes for more seals. Finally, he set the stack down.

"I sent Kabuto to ask about and determine why exactly Akatsuki would be so interested in you," Orochimaru said, voice almost airy in a way that made Hazō shudder. "Imagine my surprise when I'm suddenly accosted by the Hokage, who insists on explaining a certain, now-familiar affair with Akatsuki, and Pain, and you. How strange it was that only when Kabuto asked basic questions about rare and secret knowledge known only to the entirety of Leaf's buffoon clan heads did someone deign to inform me.

"I appreciate that the baseline odds of something worth my time happening in Leaf are so low that I am willing to accept the risk of occasionally overlooking such things in exchange for peace during my research. Perhaps I will even grant that the resurrection of Pain, wielder of the Rinnegan, is something that could be competently prevented without my intervention. However, I find this course of events, wherein my aid is clearly helpful, yet deliberately evaded by intentional omission, only to be demanded by mewling infants moments before I would otherwise discover the problem myself, frankly reprehensible.

"You are just as invested as I am in preventing the return of Pain. You will give me your uncle's seal notes, and you will be grateful that I am not taking action against you for increasing the risk of Pain's return. Unless you believe I have perhaps misconstrued the situation…?"

Hazō couldn't lie to Orochimaru and say that he'd forgotten to tell him. Hazō had obviously been hiding it, apparently Orochimaru knew that the whole Clan Council knew, and he was offended. But…

"You're right," Hazō said. "My apologies. But I do require additional substrate to complete my runecrafting research."

Orochimaru took the stack of notes and blanks and folded it over, making Hazō wince slightly, before tucking it away in a pocket. "I am right, and I have neither interest nor time to expend hundreds of genin's-worth of chakra making rocks for you. I have taught you the requisite technique. If you need substrate in a shorter term, you may give me some storage seals and I shall have Kabuto fill them with the scraps I have lying around."

Hazō wordlessly reached into his pocket and pulled out a stack of a hundred storage seals. Byakuren's mast, having sealing minions could be really nice – it had been over a year since Hazō had to scribe his own storage or explosive seals.

Orochimaru took the stack of far-more-storage-seals-than-reasonable. Did Hazō detect a hint of sourness on the older man's face?

"Kabuto will see to it," Orochimaru said. "Now, let us discuss the O'uzu Island rift. I require your first-hand testimony, and I remind you that the penalty for withholding information, if not exacted by myself, will be exacted by Pain. Describe, in as much detail as you are able, the conditions of rift's formation…"


What felt like hours later, Orochimaru finished grilling Hazō about the rift, Hazō's research into it, and what exactly Akatsuki had taken. The older man had left to check in on Noburi's progress, leaving Hazō to think.

"With that additional time to reflect," Orochimaru said as he returned, "have you identified any further information that would aid me in researching the O'uzu Island rift and averting Pain's return?"

"No, Lord Orochimaru" Hazō said. "I've told you everything you need to know that's not in the research notes."

Orochimaru nodded. "Your brother has made satisfactory progress on chakra scalpels, sufficient that he will likely be able to finish learning the technique on his own. He has begun learning the paired pain manipulation techniques. You will now discharge the rest of the questions you had for me. Begin."

Hazō took a second to study Orochimaru. The Snake Sannin's skin was unnaturally pale and free of any wrinkle, scar, or blemish that would indicate age or experience. Still, the structure of his face was oddly sharp and mature. Even if he tried, Hazō probably wouldn't be able to guess which decade of his life Orochimaru was in.

Orochimaru stared back at him, uncaring.

"I've been wondering about something," Hazō said. "I'm sure it's something you've spent time thinking about. Suppose there were multiple immortal beings, living in perpetuity. What would a long-term equilibrium between them look like? I can imagine one. If the immortals saw each other as threats, they might descend into conflict, fighting until only one remains. That doesn't seem wise to me."

"Oh?" Orochimaru said. "Do go on."

"I think that equilibrium would be wasteful," Hazō said, trying to ignore the creeping feeling that he'd caught a predator's attention. "It would be pointless for them to kill each other for minimal gain. If they could coexist, everyone would be better off – for instance, because everyone would benefit from having amicable allies against existential risks if they pop up. Is long-term peace and cooperation possible at all, at least when restricted to those wise enough to attempt to persist forever?"

"Accepting the preposterous premise, despite the lack of even one human immortal enough to participate in your scenario," Orochimaru said, "it posits too much. Why should one expect hypothetical immortals to be evenly matched, such that conflict is a risk to both parties? Why should lesser ones be useful to superior ones? The expected dynamic is not open warfare, but a few superiors and many lessers who hide from the superior's attention."

"Even that assumes conflict, though," Hazō said. "Why should there be conflict at all? These people are presumably intelligent enough to last for a very long time – why can't they coordinate?"

"Nephew, the hidden villages and the clans before them have long been led by intelligent, competent people who are highly capable of achieving whatever goals they set their minds to. When I call them idiots, I insult their judgment and choice of objectives, not their cognitive capacity. Nonetheless, conflict flourishes, because the goals of one are not mutually compatible with the goals of another. Among such powerful beings as you imagine, do you expect all of them will be sufficiently unambitious that they will be content to never raise their eyes to the metaphorical territory of another?"

"They might want things that would imply conflict," Hazō said, "but they could still refrain from fighting because fighting is too destructive to be worth it. I'm saying it might take more wisdom than normal to become immortal, given that no one's done it, so why shouldn't these people be smart enough to at least attempt cooperation?"

"They may attempt it. Many have," Orochimaru said, gesturing at the unfurled map of the Elemental Nations, now marked with the locations of the O'uzu and Iron rifts. "Behold, the divided Elemental Nations, the fruits of their labors."

"The thing is, I want more than to just survive among a few immortals standing in the graveyard of humanity." Hazō let a hint of frustration seep into his voice. "I want the whole world to be better, such that humanity can last forever, growing in wisdom and stability with every passing year."

Orochimaru chuckled, a cold, stuttering hiccup of a laugh. "You fancy yourself an immortal then? Fascinating. My apologies, I interrupted your tirade of idiocy."

Hazō held himself back from reprimanding Orochimaru's dismissal. Instead, he continued.

"You scorn humanity for its failings, but I find that those failings are from circumstance, not from inviolable nature. Sure, they aren't you. They don't have the vision and brilliance to begin breaking their chains on their own. But people can be taught. Institutions can create incentives, and those incentives can be changed to point in positive directions. Just because the bulk of humanity is lesser than you doesn't mean they need to be as lowly as they actually are. The world can be made better.

"Look, I know you find the existence of stable, competent people to be useful to you. Sage knows that what few people I know like that are incredibly useful to me." Really, Noburi and Gaku were both lifesavers. "I just want everyone to be more like that. Surely you can see how this is a better world, and one worth pursuing, right?"

"Your blustering attempts at manipulation are noticed and disdained," Orochimaru said. "I respect ambition, but I do not respect you making plainly ridiculous claims to win my favor.

"I have few objections to a more orderly, sensible world, but you incorrectly attribute the current state of deplorable chaos to… inadequate institutions? An inadequately educated populace? Whatever problem you imagine, it is incorrect. All evidence I have seen suggests that man is fundamentally a petty, controlling creature, driven by desires for social status and personal comfort, with little care for the joy or suffering of others beyond his immediate circle. The world around us is not an unfortunate accident of historical circumstance; it is a straightforward consequence of the hearts of men. To think otherwise betrays a staggering naivety that inhibits my ability to seriously consider the rest of your words."

"Please do take it seriously, because I do mean it," Hazō said. "Yes, people have small-minded, even destructive desires. Still, those desires can be set to productive means through the right social structures, and I don't think peace and progress are impossible."

"Progress, in the sense of developing more destructive weapons for more destructive wars? Certainly possible," Orochimaru agreed. "You provide no evidence for the rest of your claim except for rhetoric. If you can prove your claims, by all means do so. As I said, I will not object to a marginally more tolerable world if my intervention is not required."

"Well, I don't know if this is something you can just ignore, Lord Orochimaru. Civilization is ending itself, caught in a downward spiral, applying more destructive weapons to fight more destructive wars, as you said. The world will burn before the shortsighted fools in charge give up their fight."

"Correct, though I fail to see why I should care."

"I care, because I want to change the world's political, economic, social, institutional… everything, so that the equilibrium point is collaboration and mutual improvement, rather than wasteful self-destruction."

"Your more concrete suggestion is straightforwardly impossible," Orochimaru said. "Collaboration is primarily incentivized in positive-sum situations where all parties benefit from cooperating. A positive-sum arrangement requires that value is created, and value cannot be created infinitely. Any equilibrium in which collaboration is favored is necessarily transient."

"It is possible," Hazō insisted. "Honestly, if Akatsuki weren't largely made of short-sighted and unstable people, AMITY would be a viable route to world peace."

"World peace under the threat of annihilation by an overwhelmingly powerful, deeply hated enemy," Orochimaru said. "What a shocking triumph of human nature."

"Maybe at first it's awful," Hazō said. "But after a generation, culture could adapt to new circumstances and let people truly believe in peace."

"'Believe in peace'? How childish. The Seventh Path has had far more time and liberty to create a culture of peace, yet they still jealously guard their capacity to make war. Even were your institutions not doomed to fail, the ordinary desires of ordinary men make what you want impossible."

"Just as I'm talking rhetoric, you're also not doing anything more than flatly calling what I believe impossible," Hazō said. "With all due respect, Lord Orochimaru, where's your evidence?"

Orochimaru fixed Hazō with an unblinking stare. "In the Second World War, I have seen Hidden Villages tear themselves apart without the action of any external enemy, because people's desire for power and status was greater than their allegiance to their country. I have seen Leaf gradually decay under the weight of its Clan Council, carefully preventing anything useful from getting done in order to win ever-larger shares of their piles of rotting fruit. I have seen over a dozen clans collapse on themselves due to succession crises or internal warring, do you wish me to name them? Yoshida, Sasaki, Nisshoku, Hasegawa, Yari, and more. I have caused such conflicts for my own convenience, and it takes shockingly little to have brothers driving their spears into each other's throats. Even in those scarce few corners of the world that I would call peaceful or idyllic, I have seen men murder and rape for the most idiotic reasons. It has only ever been under the threat of violence that I have seen people restrain themselves. Hashirama brought Leaf's clans in line by the strength of his own ninjutsu, and all the evidence I have seen suggests that it is the risk of their destruction that restrains them still. Does that suffice?"

"I… I suppose so."

"Good," Orochimaru said. "This conversation bores me, and I believe we are nearing the end of your bargained time regardless. Ask your final question."

Hazō paused, letting the wording settle in his mind before he spoke.

"I want your advice on one more thing," Hazō said. "I want to know, given my values, if there are flaws in my goals and approach. What should I be doing to maximize the general welfare of humanity in the short and medium term, and what can I do to help humanity become stable for the infinite future?"

"There are indeed flaws in your goals and approach," Orochimaru agreed. "It is simple: you are starting from incorrect assumptions, using faulty reasoning to draw flawed conclusions from inadequate evidence, and expecting this to yield useful results. I would recommend starting from scratch."

"Starting from scratch?" Hazō asked.

"It's clear that my words aren't penetrating your skull, so you must ask a Yamanaka to rip from your head all the foolishness you talked about today and hope that you manage to formulate meaningfully achievable goals next time.

"Of course, I recall a condition of our deal was that I would actually answer your questions rather than dismiss them out of hand, so I should provide a full answer. You aim to end generational hatred, unite all nations into one, and make every man see every other man as his brother, sufficiently so that conflict is all but gone. To achieve this goal, the possible paths are obvious. Assuming you want to avoid the tyranny of total conquest, I would recommend simply rewriting the personalities of all of humanity to align them with your imagined conception of human nature. I trust you see the parallel?"

"To Pain? Yes."

"It is good that you are now capable of making basic inferences," Orochimaru said. "Perhaps you will also infer the consequences if you tried such a thing without being a wielder of the Rinnegan.

"Your actual question is far easier to answer. In the short term, I have no suggestions. General welfare is suitably improved by providing walls and basic services as you are already doing, and I suspect you have put far more thought into short-term considerations than I have. In the medium term, I can imagine two interventions that would dramatically improve the quality of life for ordinary civilians. First, you should end chakra beasts."

"End chakra beasts?" Hazō asked.

"Or, at the very least, render them somehow as peaceable as the fauna and flora of the Seventh Path," Orochimaru said. "Of course, this is impossible, as all living things exist in a highly interconnected web, and chakra beasts cannot be all killed without condemning all of humanity to extinction, but the point remains that current beast suppression missions are insufficient, and that a true solution needs to be found. Perhaps runes can do something useful in this regard, somehow minimizing the mutagenic impact of human chakra on the beasts? I defer such investigations to you, as they clearly interest you more than me.

"Second, you should dramatically improve the nutrition of the ordinary farmer."

"Nutrition?" Hazō asked. "Why?"

"Nine in ten civilians live on farms," Orochimaru said. "Actually, eight in nine in Fire, and the ratio is worse in less fertile countries. Tsunade spends time curing plagues and tending to ailments, but her work is misguided. Not only would her goals be better achieved if the civilians she cured didn't starve during a winter shortly thereafter, but better-nourished civilians are simply less likely to fall ill. Improvements in nutrition will not just turn dry seasons from mass-starvation into simple rationing, but will also improve the civilians' ability to work more efficiently in the fields, thereby securing their own continued good nutrition. It is one of few self-reinforcing, lasting positive changes that I can imagine."

"It is just an oddly specific idea that I'd never heard of before," Hazō said.

Orochimaru frowned. "It is one I entertained long ago. The high-fertility rice crop that is now a staple to all of Fire was my invention. The original strain still farmed elsewhere is more docile – increased mobility and aggression were inevitable consequences of increasing the species' capacity for chakra absorption – but the new strain is considerably hardier and produces substantially greater yield in less physical space and with less stringent requirements on water level management. Was Sarutobi truly so spiteful as to strike my name from the work?"

"I think he must have," Hazō said as he struggled to mesh this supposed claim with the actual, monstrous Orochimaru he knew.

"How pitiful," Orochimaru said. "Regardless, I have moved beyond such endeavors. Determining how to make biomodifications heritable was but a stepping stone towards true bloodline research, though humans are naturally far more challenging to modify than plants.

"Lastly, long-term civilizational stability in the way you envision is impossible. I believe that fully answers your question."

Orochimaru stood and walked back towards the training field. He paused at the edge of the privacy seals.

"Perhaps had you a few more years of experience under your belt, I might have been able to say that it was a pleasure working with you."

With that, he left to finish tutoring Noburi in the basics of his techniques.

Hazō stayed in the OPSEC-safe bubble, thinking thoughts he'd never thought he'd think. Hazō had spent plenty of time considering the depths of Orochimaru's atrocities – how could he not, having explored the Basement first-hand? Yet… if Orochimaru wasn't lying (and Hazō saw no reason why the Sannin would), and the Sannin had indeed created higher yield crops for the entirety of Fire to farm with, just how many lives had Orochimaru saved?

---

Noburi is willing to take suggestions regarding his dilemma, though will make the final decision himself.

Doctor Yakushi confessed that he had no real understanding of technique creation or modification, and thus would be useless at examining Noburi to judge if techniques could be modified to work with Noburi's bloodline. Doctor Yakushi said that Orochimaru was uninterested in Noburi's reasons for refusal, nor in compensating foolishness with additional jutsu.

In the interest of good grammar, I inserted the word "to" into the following plan line:

• If immortals see each other as threats, are they forced to fight until only one remains?

Ordinarily, this would make the plan 400 words, and thus give it a wordcount penalty of -1. I'm not actually applying the penalty this time, but I will in the future. Apologies, but I want to stay far from the slippery slope alternative where plans become even more wordcount-compressed and even less legible. If you're pasting into Google Docs to check wordcount, you can also check for blue underlines that might indicate illegibly-overcompressed grammar.

XP Award: 3 + 0 (brevity) XP

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on May 8, 2024 at 7:00 AM .