Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Step-by-slow-step, the team circled around the grotto, weapons and misterators ready to deal with any beasts they encountered. Despite the pool clearly being the center of life in the cave system, they found nothing more animate than the pool's reeds. Those reeds had angled towards the team's back after they passed by and had caught one of Kagome's explosives as a reward.

Once they'd sealed the grotto's every exit (usually roughly, since the Multiple Earth Wall's square shapes couldn't quite close the irregular tunnels), Kagome had started assembling his 'perimeter' – which, thanks to the limited directions of entry, involved much heavier fortifications on each entrance – while Noburi cleared the pool.

"Well, the pool is now five percent dead fish," Noburi said finally, after completing his circuit around the pool's surface, reed scraps parting as he water-walked to the stone shelf where Hazō was experimenting with a crystal he'd carefully separated from a large cluster on the ceiling. "There are other living things in there I can sense, but too deep to drain. Hopefully they're busy snacking on the fishies I just sank, but I'll accompany anyone on the water just in case. Any luck with the rocks, Hazō?"

"Nope," Hazō said, scowling and tossing the translucent hunk of crystal he'd been examining into the lake, where it landed with a satisfying plop. "They're useless. Nothing but rocks."

"Did you figure out why they're glowing and changing color?" Noburi asked.

"Also nothing. Well, there's some weird chakra effect going on inside them that I could see on Kagome-sensei's chakrascope, but that doesn't help us understand it. The piece I broke off went clear and dead as soon as I separated it."

"Could there be light coming from their base somewhere that's illuminating them?"

"I don't… huh," Hazō said. "Maybe. Let's check."

They found a node of crystal on the ceiling barely bigger than either of their fists, and watched as it cycled colors. Pink, blue, green, yellow, back to pink.

Hazō placed his chisel and hammered the crystal free from the wall. It immediately went clear. The wall where it had sat was just bare gray-brown stone.

Hazō tried to channel his chakra into the crystal, then tossed it down into the pool to join its useless brethren. "Nope. The crystals just glow."

"Sure, why not?" Noburi said. "The crystals glow. Some funky chakra effect. Whatever."

"Why?" Hazō asked. "Why do they glow? What's going on in this pool that makes it so different from anywhere else?"

"I dunno," Noburi said. "Chakra's weird, bro. Maybe they just glow. Anyways, while you were banging rocks together, I found something cool. Come check this out."

They dropped to the surface of the pool together, then jumped away into combat stances as they heard an explosion.

"Just a stinker triggering traps on perimeter section seventeen!" Kagome called out. "Reinforcing now!"

There were no further explosions.

"Poor little things," Noburi said. "They'll die of thirst out there."

"Good," Hazō said. "We need to study the pool and replicate its effects. The fewer beasts interrupt us, the better."

"So you don't know why the rocks glow pretty colors, but you'll somehow replicate the pool's effect on the most complex organ system in your body?" Noburi asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Yes."

"Well, you're in luck. You have one of the world's foremost experts on chakra systems right here," Noburi said, puffing his chest out. "I spent the last three months getting a crash-course on chakra systems from the world's greatest med-nin, after all. Well, we mostly studied my own chakra system, but I'm sure it'll apply to whatever's happening here."

"Honestly? I wanted to make a rune to imitate the water," Hazō said, continuing to follow Noburi to the low stone shelf on the opposite side of the pool.

"Do you think that'll work?" Noburi asked, his voice no longer jokey. "Look around, Hazō. This place is so insanely alive. The mosses, the ferns, the reeds – more plants grow down here than in some of Leaf's forests, and without any sunlight. Hell, the pool is warm even though the caves are cool! Something's heating the water up, maybe the stuff living inside of it. And like I said, your chakra system is a physical thing – a real, complex group of organs that interacts with every other body system in this crazy interplay that's somehow always an inch from failure but never fails. If something in this place messes with that chakra system, I'd bet you that it's something alive. Maybe the lichens, those look like they've been here a while."

"It's possible," Hazō agreed, as Noburi led him off the water. "But don't jump to conclusions. We don't know what the weirdness could be. What did you want to show me?"

"That," Noburi said, pointing to the stone ceiling above them.

Carved into a smooth patch of the stone was an intricately detailed portrait of a toad. No, a Toad – with an over-long smoking pipe and a haori and a tough-looking expression.

"Is that…"

Next to the detailed toad, there was a simple, stylized hexagonal ring. No, not quite a ring. It was broken at one point, where one line opened up as if in open jaws. An ouroboros.

"Yep."

Next to the ouroboros was an indentation in the otherwise smooth stone. A fist shaped indentation. Given its companions, Hazō could almost imagine it was some sort of weird, lumpy slug.

"Jiraiya's still beating us to the punch after all this time, huh?" Noburi asked, gazing up with Hazō at the marks on the low ceiling next to the pool.

"In the intermediary period prior to our departure on the extended research mission, I briefly investigated the Sannin's history to identify in which stage of their lives they would have delved such exotic places as these," Kei said, dropping down from her overwatch into the shelf with Hazō and Noburi.

"For several months in 1038, Sannin serially raided Hidden Rain. Despite Leaf forces generally approaching the country from the east, the Sannin frequently flanked Hidden Rain forces via the west. It was believed that they were transiting through Wind Country, who in the Second World War was an enemy of Fire's. Sand took great efforts to catch them and their three newly-won summoning scrolls, but failed to even sight them. The Sannin simply did not return to Leaf at all, having apparently found a 'mountain hideaway' to bivouac in between raids, with their attacks coordinated via jōnin commander and Monkey Summoner Sarutobi Hiruzen.

"That series of raids in Rain ended after they confronted Hanzō of the Salamander at the Ryūketsu Mudpit. He was reportedly impressed by, among other things, their stamina. Despite killing every single other Leaf ninja, he spared them so long as they bore the title of the Legendary Three, let all know that it was Hanzō who let them live, and left Rain in peace forevermore."

"Their stamina, huh?" Noburi said. "Orochimaru did say that the pool made ninjutsu cost less chakra…"

"Why did he let them live, instead taking their scrolls for Rain?" Hazō asked.

"Leaf historians claim that the Sannin in fact fought Hanzō to a draw," Kei said. "This contradicts every statement the Sannin have personally made – acknowledging that they had only Hanzō's mercy to thank for their lives. Mist historians are no better, suggesting that Hanzō aimed to secure an alliance with Leaf by leaving the Sannin as a thorn in Mist's side. I suspect that none but the Sannin know for certain."

"Huh, so the pool's effect was the key thing that let them survive the battle, then," Hazō said.

"Yeah, but that's not enough, is it?" Noburi asked. "They should have died. Imagine it. Your every trick, your every advantage, always just barely enough to stay alive while your companions die one-by-one around you. Then, it turns out you didn't have enough anyway, because the guy you're fighting is the baddest bastard since Hashirama and Madara. Except, he lets you live for some reason – something you'd never do to any enemy you respect – and he sends you off with a new title and a message to stay off his lawn.

"I wonder how the Sannin felt about their title? They got it from their greatest defeat, but people only know it because of their greatest achievements. Maybe that's why Hanzō did it. He knew they would do amazing things, and wanted every one of their accomplishments to have the footnote: '...but Hanzō is still stronger.' I guess they ended up owning the name anyway and probably outliving him."

"With my wholly superficial insight into Jiraiya's psyche," Kei said, "I presume he detested having the specter of someone stronger than him perpetually at his shoulder. I expect he ultimately repressed any thoughts of Hanzō and, yes, simply made the title his own."

"Regardless," Hazō said, yanking his thoughts away from the past. "We can't camp out here indefinitely, doing raids from this one cave in Wind Country. We need to take the effect with us when we go. I think the Sannin probably did the same themselves. It would help explain some of their insane missions over the years."

"There are more," Kei said, ignoring Hazō's words as she stared at the ceiling, making Hazō's and Noburi's gaze follow.

Faded and half-covered by layers of lichens, there were carvings above the ones made by the Sannin. One was a simple name, 'Tsuki'. Another was a crest featuring some sort of tubular flower. A pine flower?

(Hazō missed Ino's absentminded rambles about floristry. He wished he'd listened more. It was her birthday today, wasn't it?)

The last, highest and barely visible, had a square containing some scratches. If it was a character, it had long since faded out of legibility.

Hazō shook his head. "We're far from the first to discover this place. We might be the last, unless we stop Pain from coming back, and that involves making progress, not ruminating on the past. We need chakra to research and train, so we need to imitate the water's effect, and for that, we need to make the cave safe enough to study it."

"Kagome's been working on the perimeters for like an hour now," Noburi said. "I'm pretty sure he won't stop until this place is safer than Leaf itself… which I'm realizing means very little for us right now."

"We haven't killed the chakravores yet," Hazō said. "We shouldn't study the pool until we exterminate them. If the effect on our chakra system takes a while to get used to, we could get caught with our pants down."

"I, for one, intend to put my pants back on after my dip in the pool," Noburi said.

"You know what I meant," Hazō said. "We should clear the tunnels exiting from the grotto until we've cleared the whole cave system."

"Potential exit tunnels number over two dozen," Kei said. "Only a subset of which are sufficiently wide for a human to explore."

"Fine, we clear whichever tunnels we can and stuff the rest with alternating layers of stone and explosives," Hazō said. "We'll need a couple days to research the water effect, so it's worth spending a couple days to make sure we don't get ambushed during our research."

"And if we encounter more branching points?" Noburi asked. "We have no clue how deep this goes, right?"

"We deal with it no matter how deep it goes," Hazou said. "Orochimaru's notes made it sound like he killed hundreds of beasts. We should assume they replenished, and we shouldn't relax until we've killed them again. Let's grab the others and prepare to explore the tunnels."


Kagome had balked at relying entirely on an unmanned perimeter to secure the team's exit route in the event of disaster, given the occasional creature getting blown up by the directional explosives stuffed into the grotto's every mouth. Mari, already injured, had volunteered to stay behind with Kagome to keep him safe and guard the exits.

Despite the over-paranoid sealmaster's absence, the forward team progressed slowly. Sometimes, they could pump a tunnel with mist and clear it in barely ten minutes. Other times, it took over an hour for a tunnel to fully mist up, and exploring deeper revealed smaller cisterns of water, fed by invisible trickling streams from the main pool, with three or five or a dozen more narrow tunnels branching out.

It had only been a couple hours when Yuno called out. "My chakra's disappearing!"

The team dropped into combat stances and flashed their Daybright Lanterns around the tunnel's walls, only to see no hint of ominous floating otters.

"Noburi!" Hazō called out.

Noburi closed his eyes. "There!" he said, pointing at craggy rock at a turn in the tunnel ahead of them.

Kei immediately threw a tagged kunai at the rock. The low-power explosion made all their ears ring and caused one of the floating chakravores to zip out of a jagged nook and away down the tunnel.

Before Hazō could dash after it, Tenten's shuriken sheared through its midsection and dropped it to the ground in two pieces.

"Yuno, how are your reserves?" Hazō asked after a pause long enough to confirm that nothing else was attacking them.

Yuno hesitated. "...fine. It only took a little before I noticed."

"Noburi, are there any more of them?"

Noburi had his eyes closed, still sensing through the thin mist around them.

"Nope," he said. "I don't sense any more of them around."

"Good," Hazō said. "Every dead chakravore is progress. Can you refill Yuno so we can keep moving?"


Yuno crouched, touching the stone beneath her feet.

"Yuno?" Hazō asked.

"Burrowers," she said in reply. "The stone here is misshapen, see?"

Hazō shined a Daybright Lantern on the rough stone. He didn't see.

"There's a beast that can move through stone," she said. "It's not big, probably smaller than a person, but it surfaced somewhere here-," she pointed at a spot on the floor, "-moved along-," she traced a line across the floor which coincided with a natural-looking gash in the ground, "-and went back under here." She pointed down to the spot she'd stopped to inspect.

"I see," Hazō said. "Okay, we need to keep an eye on the walls too, then. Actually, this is important. Let's double back and warn Kagome-sensei about this. He'll want to update his trap array to account for burrowers.


"Some creatures ahead," Noburi whispered. "Maybe some Water Element ability? The mist feels a bit too thin to drain through, so I'm popping another misterator."

He pulled the seal from his pouch and pointed it forward, and Hazō suppressed a minor wince. They'd been burning through seals rapidly as they explored the cave, and without the clan's junior sealmasters, even weak seals would need to be replaced by himself and Kagome. Every expended misterator meant five more minutes of scribing for him (though Kagome had it worse, still replenishing the team's skywalkers after their airborne journeys).

Except, the seal didn't activate.

Noburi frowned and handed the seal to Hazō. No visible water damage, but the paper didn't feel dry. Had the mist ruined the seal in the pause between Noburi pulling it out of his seal pouch and activating it?

Noburi had already popped another misterator and advanced down the tunnels. Hazō heard the telltale thumps of the heavily-spined rabbits being drained to death.

Hazō tucked the seal away for further study, cursing that his five minute expenditure had probably grown into hours. Oh well. It was worth spending time to keep his team safe.


Hazō saw Noburi stop short as he climbed a short ledge. Hazou vaulted up the rising tunnel segment. He stopped just as quickly.

In front of him, a dozen small creatures looked back at him with big, white eyes that reflected his Daybright Lantern. The savaged remains of an otter lay in their midst, red blood and bits spread across the floor and staining the creatures' feet. The creatures looked like dogs, if dogs were white, hairless, six-legged, and half as big with twice as many teeth.

Hazō cautiously stepped forward to make room for the rest of the team to crest the ledge behind him. He heard the sound of callus against metal as Kei prepared to throw a kunai.

"Noburi?" Hazō asked in a whisper.

"Right," Noburi said, reaching for another misterator and unleashing the cone at the creatures.

They started to hum. Hazō had been expecting a growl, but instead they made a low, constant buzzing sound as they started to pace towards the human group.

"Noburi!?" Hazō whispered more insistently.

"They're not there!" Noburi whispered back. "I mean, I'm trying to pull their chakra but they disappear from my senses when I do!"

Hazō made a decision in a split second. "Attack!"

Tenten's shuriken split the skull of one of the beasts an instant later.

A six-legged creature threw itself through the stream of mist at Noburi, as he leapt sideways towards a wall, conjuring his Water Whip from his barrel and striking it out of the air. Yuno moved as he did, lightning suddenly sparkling around her as she activated Strength of the Storm, and Satsuko tore off two of the creature's left-sided legs, sending it to the ground in a whimpering wail. Two more of the white beasts bounded around Yuno, bouncing off the wall to lunge jaws-first at Noburi. He caught one's bite against his Water Whip, but the other latched onto his arm.

Hazō braced himself for the sickening crunch, but Noburi moved almost faster than Hazō could track, twisting around on his Rocket Boots and slamming the creature into the wall before it could shear his arm off. As the beast dropped to the ground, the soft pop of Kei's Wind-boosted kunai took it through the gut.

The advancing beasts were on Hazō too quickly for him to activate his Force Claw seals. He ducked, dodged, and struck back as the beasts assaulted him from all sides. They outsped him on foot, but his Rocket Boots kept him just ahead as he circled the low cave.

Hazō flip-kicked another six-legged monstrosity away him and in his upside-down instant, activated his Force Claws. He landed and immediately pulsed his Rocket Boots towards the beast he'd kicked away. A macerator shot from his palm slammed it against the wall again, then a stab-swipe from his seal-bladed knuckles spilled its organs across the floor.

Hazō turned. Noburi had wrapped himself in a dense mantle of water to match Yuno's cloak of lightning, but the beasts bore down on them from all sides. Tenten and Kei picked off a pair in an instant, and Yuno cleaved another in half, but there were so many, and another lupine creature leapt for Noburi's leg, leaving a deep scratch.

Hazō raced across the room to his brother's aid, but the horde wouldn't leave him alone. A pair of creatures chased him, and Hazō decided not to leave his back open. He spun around again, another impossible maneuver made possible by his Rocket Boots, and tore his Force Claw right through a pouncing creature's face. He roundhouse kicked the other, then cut it nearly in half from above.

He turned back towards Noburi, but the battle was over. The beasts were running or limping deeper into the cave, and Kei and Tenten were picking off the stragglers one by one with their weapons.

Once they'd killed the injured beasts and the heartbeat in their ears had settled, Noburi spoke. "Yeah, good idea to clear them all out, Hazō. Let's not get jumped by a dozen of those while we're not expecting combat."

"Are you okay, Noburi?" Hazō asked.

"Yeah, I'm good," he said. "Just some scratches. I'll disinfect and bandage myself up, and I'll be good to go. Anyone need a chakra top-up first?"


"Chakra falling," Tenten whispered, breaking the cave's silence.

Hazō turned to Noburi, but he was already focusing.

"Somewhere ahead, not sure where," he said after an instant in which they all held still despite their combat instincts telling them to move.

"Forward!" Hazō called out.

They raced down the hallway, pulsing chakra through their Rocket Boots to control their acceleration down a slope, only to find four chakravores facing them down.

Hazō opened his mouth to call an attack, but two chakravores immediately fell to the teams' artillery while Yuno raced ahead of him and sliced another in half. The last fled down the hallway, and Hazō resisted the urge to pursue.

"That was a lot of them," he said, speaking quickly. "Are we good to pursue? We're deep in the cave now, so we might find a lot of them."

Nods went around.

"Tenten, how much chakra are you down?"

She held up four fingers, then lowered one.

"A quarter down? Noburi, fill her up then let's go."

They waited a tense moment, combat energy making them bounce as Noburi measured out water and handed it to Tenten, then they were off.

The tunnel bent upwards again and opened into another small, water-filled cistern.

It was packed with chakravores. Hazō spotted two dozen at a glance, then noticed more floating in the water – tiny discolored otters locomoting in clutches on the water with yellowish tendrils growing from their backs.

The instant he entered the room, he felt the touch of the chakravores. It felt just like Candoru had described, like cold, slimy fingers were grasping around his soul and trying to yank it out of him.

Except, those fingers were awfully weak. Hazō didn't close his eyes, but he focused inwards and stabilized his chakra. He couldn't feel how they were draining him, but he could tell when the drain suddenly slowed. Compared to the onslaught of reintegrating chakra from a shadow clone, even compared to Noburi's drain… the chakravores were weak.

But their drain hadn't completely stopped, and with over forty in the room, who knew how long he'd hold out.

"I can't pull chakra back out of them!" Noburi called out.

"Kill them all!" Hazō replied, racing down the side of the room. Tenten and Kei sniped the floating otters as Yuno dashed along the walls, slashing any chakravores in reach. Hazō had a different target in mind.

Hazō raced across the cistern's surface, deactivating his Force Claws and reaching into his seal pouch for another tool. He held up his hand to a clutch of eight of the chakravore younglings and blew them to bits with a directional explosive.

Unlike most of the beasts down here, the chakravores couldn't dodge. Their speed was pitiful by ninja standards, so they died as quickly as the team could attack them. Hazō dashed across the water to another clutch of chakravore younglings and killed ten more with twin cones of force and fire in each palm.

He looked for another target, only for his foot to… slip? He fell into the water and his hands snapped out to catch himself. His hands stayed above the surface by chakra repulsion while his lower body slipped underwater and he pushed away with enhanced strength, leaping back out of the water and onto his feet – only for his waterwalking to do nothing at all. His feet plunged back through the surface.

Hazō flutter-kicked, old reflexes from Mist's swimming lessons coming back to him as he grabbed the surface of the water again with his hands to stay up. The chakravores had somehow eaten the chakra repulsion from his feet, limiting his mobility. They'd probably take away his hands too, soon.

The water had ruined his Rocket Boots, so he needed another way out of the water. He could substitute a teammate into the water, but then they'd have the same problem as him. His seal pouch had been ruined by submersion, his jutsu wouldn't help…

Damn it, Mist had trained him. He could fight in the water if he needed to.

Three powerful chakra-enhanced strokes took him to a side of the small cistern. He grabbed onto one of the chakravore young and yanked it towards him, grabbing its head with his other hand and tearing its head off. He discarded its body immediately and moved onto the next, killing them one by one until he finally felt the traction return to his feet.

His focus had slipped, costing him more chakra, but he returned to the water's surface just in time to hear the splash of a body hitting the water behind him.

"Tenten!" Kei cried out.

Of course. He and Kei had the mental and spiritual fortitude to resist the chakravores' drain, and Noburi had too much chakra for the beasts to take him out of commission, but Tenten had neither the reserves nor the Gōketsu special training to resist the drain of a dozen chakravores.

All the adult chakravores had emerged from the pool and floated away from the walls, doing nothing… or rather, trying to drain the team's chakra as hard as they could. The team had cut down the beasts' numbers down to less than a dozen, but Yuno looked weakened.

Hazō ate his words an instant later as Yuno leaped across the cistern to slash a particularly large otter in half, as Kei and Tenten continued to snipe the chakravores down. There were only four more adult ones that he could see.

Yuno landed on the opposite wall and slipped, her feet not finding traction where she expected it and the normally combat-composed jōnin flailed for a moment as she plummeted towards the water.

When she landed, she didn't struggle. She sank.

Hazō didn't even have time to contribute as Kei and Noburi sniped down the last few adults, then dove into the water for their respective lovers. Hazō quickly killed the remaining younglings.

Noburi was the first to emerge with Yuno, who he quickly dragged to the tunnel they'd entered through. Kei followed a moment later, hoisting Tenten's body with desperate strength. She didn't have to ask Noburi to pick which one to save – Noburi had already set Yuno to coughing out water as Kei roughly set Tenten down, and Noburi quickly turned her over and slapped her back to get the water out of her lungs.

After tiny sips of chakra water to return their consciousness and a few tense minutes of tending to them, in which Hazō somehow ended up being overwatch while Kei minded Tenten like a hawk, Noburi finally spoke.

"Good news, neither of you suffered any injury from the drowning," he said. "It was only like five seconds for you, Tenten, and less for you, Yuno. It's your chakra coils that are the issue. Tenten, your coils just have some light burns, like some kind of minor training injury that'll be better tomorrow… but Yuno, how hard did you push yourself there? Your coils are totally burnt out! If they'd kept draining you, you would have died!"

"I'm fine, my honeybee," Yuno said weakly. "I needed to kill them, and I killed them."

"With the chakravores dead and their nest destroyed, do we need to worry about anything else down here?" Hazō asked, not looking away from the tunnel he needed to watch. "Apart from the little things that your chakra drain couldn't affect, everything else should drop instantly, right?"

"Excepting any creature that attacks at range, the as-yet-unknown burrowers that could still ambush us, any chakravores that happened to be hunting, or any other beast immune to drain, a remarkably useful capability with the chakravores running rampant," Kei said.

"We should get out of here," Noburi said. "I should treat both of them, but I don't want to do it here."

"I can still fight," Tenten said quietly, pushing herself up to her elbows, then making her way to her feet. Kei took a step as if to help her up, but stopped abruptly.

"It's probably fine. You should-" Noburi paused as Tenten coughed. "You should ideally minimize chakra use, but that's not a big deal right now. It'll hurt, but you're fully combat capable. Yuno, on the other hand, you should stay back and away while we get out of here."

"Right, exfiltration plans," Hazō said. "Here's what I think we should do…"

---

Hazō currently has 88 chakra points, Kei has 106, Noburi has 530, and Yuno and Tenten have 1 each. Yuno has a Mild, Medium, and Severe Consequence, and Tenten has a Mild Consequence. With the narrow tunnels, Hazō would estimate that they're a couple minutes from the Kagome-fortified pool at a reckless dash, or fifteen minutes at a cautious pace. The exit route is not fully clear (passes through an open space attached to uncleared tunnels). Everyone gains 2 FP for two combat victories.

I will probably not provide rolls for this chapter's combats. No unstagnations have yet happened.

Hazō used the chakrascope and MS8 seals on the crystals from this cave. He has acquired some samples, but to the best of his observations, they seem like ordinary rocks. Seals do not burn up in this cave.

Apart from finishing the day of September 23 (which had a full day's XP award in Chapter 674), this update covers two additional days of exploring the cave system. Both combats above happened on the last day of the update. The team estimates that they have explored around 70% of the parts of the cave that are explorable by humans. They have probably killed less than 70% of the chakra beasts, since some beasts fled deeper into the caves when the team approached them, but the total killed is still easily in the middle-hundreds range.

XP Award: 10 + 2 (brevity) XP

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Sep 7, 2024 at 1:00 PM .