I'm writing this with a fever, severe congestion, and many other disgusting symptoms that medicine is doing its best to manage. Please read tone charitably.
...the entire playerbase gets shot by stray bullets, even though the majority of us weren't here for this. Many of us, the regular/frequent players, were not here for AugJEV. Anon-trivial amount of us were not even here before the Collapse of Leaf.
And then when you respond with passive aggressive, corporate-esque stock lines...
...all it does it sully the culure that this thread tries to maintain. And because you're the QM, one of the Omnigods of the MfD universe, the power differential between QM and Player makes it difficult to talk to you about such behavior.
If a player were to say something like this, EJ, you'd be among the first to call it out for the rude nonapology that it is, and how it undermines the social norms we all (QMs and players alike) strive to maintain. People have made posts like this before, and you've historically addressed it in such terms.
If you're upset? Alright, your conversational partner probably is, too, so let's take 30min to cool down and then let's talk about it like adults.
Your spoons are low? The world is on fire, and a significant percentage of this playerbase is going to be persecuted by the next president; all our spoons are low. So let's talk about it, so we can save from needlessly wasting them.
You're physically sick, or other seasonal stuff is going on, and it's causing a hair trigger? We're all sick this time of year, and seasonal depression, grief, and meatspace familial obligations sure isn't going to help. So let's talk about it.
If you think we're being unfair to the NPCs, and that we should be more gracious in our interpretations, then let's sit down and have a meaningful discussion about it, so we can see how the misalignment in perspective began.
Heck, we even just did this on Discord not too long ago, when you asserted that someone else was being unfair about the Yamanaka Clan's contribution to the Goketsu Clan's reputation.
Maybe you're not having fun writing this arc, and that's causing the spoon economy of being a MfD author to go haywire? Well, it's called cooperative storytelling for a reason, so let's talk about it. Off the top of my head, the playerbase has never been shy about voting through "Let [author] write what they want, we trust them" whenever a QM has expressed an interest in writing something specific.
Or maybe it's some other thing, who cares, because it all boils down to: let's talk about it. It doesn't have to be right this second, but let's talk about it like we're the cool, mature adults we'd like to be.
After all, there are other options than "passive aggressively sniping at people." (Three guesses as to what I'm going to suggest, and the first two don't count )
After all, there are other options than "passive aggressively sniping at people." (Three guesses as to what I'm going to suggest, and the first two don't count )
Once, I would have assumed the answer was "more cute romcom", but after spending time on the Discord, I don't know if I should just be sending you to horny jail without any request for elaboration.
Once, I would have assumed the answer was "more cute romcom", but after spending time on the Discord, I don't know if I should just be sending you to horny jail without any request for elaboration.
The front-facing answer was "let's talk about it," but everyone knows to look underneath, and you'll find the true answer was "more rom-com." A ninja, however, knows to look underneath the underneath, thus finding the Forbidden Lore answer: more Snowflake
However, I've noticed a similar uptick in what I'm going to loosely refer to as 'bad behaviour' from the QMs. Part of the strength of the quest and community is niceness and generosity. Seeing the QMs shift away from this is troubling both because (for better or worse) QMs tend to lead communities, and because the power imbalance makes it a lot harder for players to call out this sort of behaviour on the part of the QMs.
This surprised me, so I did a search for QM posts and went through the most recent three pages. Based on what I'm seeing I think that "the QMs" is a polite way of saying "you, EJ". Hey, don't tar the others with that brush! Specifically, I see [EDIT: a few arguable cases and] the following clear cases:
Yeah, that was snotty of me. Sorry for that; we got a lot of salt thrown at us during that period and the memory is still a sore spot, but that doesn't excuse me being a snot.
I can see how this comes off as harsh, but I stand by it. The post I was replying to really did jump on my buttons and I did make an effort to read charitably, meaning to interpret it as not intentional.
Yeesh. You literally saw him call out "Wood Element: <technique name>" and then a bunch of wood appeared (insert dirty joke here). What does it take to convince you if you won't trust your own eyes/ears?
We are doing this for a variety of reasons, among them the fact that some of the players made courteous and well-evidenced arguments for it. Some players also made arguments that included throwing shade and calling us out for malice, which sharply disinclined us from positive responses, but we got past it.
Paper posted this but I'm the one who actually drafted it, so I'll take the heat if it comes off as bad behavior. I do stand by it -- we did get shade thrown at us, we were called out for malice, that is a hot button for me (and, I suspect for the other QMs although I haven't explicitly asked), and we made a real effort to be as positive as possible in this post.
Anyway, sounds like I'm the problem child here. Thanks for pointing it out; I'll do better.
Okay, didn't expect to provoke that strong a reaction.
Responding a little out of order:
I do in fact consider you a friend, and I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. I think 'shotgunning' is a little harsh -- I don't believe I've made other negative replies to you recently.
Since you've now responded, this is a bit outdated (I took too long typing it), but I wanted to comment on a specific thing which you didn't mention above. (Just in case I've messed up the tone, this is intended to come across as a constructive suggestion for avoiding miscommunication - please do tell me if it comes across differently!)
My expectation is that you intended this to be deescalatory (is that correct?). At least to me (not as the person who made that particular comment, but as someone who shared the sentiment), it instead came off as you saying that you thought @Sir Stompy , and by extension other people with similar views, were ... unworthy of respect, I suppose? That their argument was so obviously false that you could dismiss it without bothering to engage.
Breaking this down a bit; I think the key thing that causes that reaction in me is being told someone regrets that I feel that way when what's been expressed is criticism of them. "I regret that you feel that way" works when what you're addressing is hurt; it makes sense if you're arguing a position that's unpleasant to someone but that you nevertheless need to argue. It doesn't work when someone is criticising your argument, because the other person isn't suffering, they just disagree with you; saying that you regret that implies that you caused it, when in fact they already disagreed with you before you brought the discussion up.
It's of course fine not to want to have a discussion right now this minute. (It took me a while to learn that lesson growing up!) Discussions take effort, and people may not have the time or the energy to have them. But in that case, you can just say that instead; make it clear that you're deferring the conversation to a later point, instead of responding with something that's also what you would say to someone who you don't consider worth the effort of convincing.
Just as a note - I do think you're generally very good at social interaction, insofar as I can judge such things (which is probably not very far!). Most of the time, what you say comes off as positive, prosocial, and generally good - it's just the occasional thing that comes off as a bit over the line, and I think in many forums that would actually be considered completely normal interaction (though that might say more about the nature of the internet than anything else ...). If anything, it's a mark of how good a community you've built here that this is even being brought up at all.
Ooh, I remember this one! So yes, this was clearly a joke; but it did actually noticeably annoy me at the time. Mostly, this was because you hit one of my hot buttons which you had no particular way of knowing about it - I am not a fan of people trying to argue that the rational thing to believe is something other than what they themselves believe it to be, especially not that blatantly, and I disliked Shikamaru's statements in that chapter for that reason - but I think since you're a QM and can make authorative statements about the way the world of MfD actually is, it hit harder because of that. I don't think I would have been nearly so annoyed if a player had made the same joke, since they have the same information I have and I could be more confident that (like me) they believed Shikamaru was faking and were making a joke; but since it was you making the joke, I had to consider the possibility that you had information I didn't which indicated that Shikamaru genuinely had Wood Element, and were then accusing me of being irrational for believing something that was actually the sensible thing to believe with the information I had; and it didn't help that the context was that I'd been replying to someone who (I learned after my post but before your reply) had actually believed that Shikamaru had had Wood Element, so I was more in the frame of mind of thinking about that ... there was a lot going into it. (Thinking about it, I suppose some of what I'm describing is actually the original definition of gaslighting, before people started using it to mean essentially any kind of manipulation, so maybe finding it annoying isn't just a me thing?)
I think, all in all, this is probably generally fine? I didn't appreciate it much, but judging by the reactions, other people did, and you had no real way of predicting it would annoy me in particular. But since we're bringing up nuances of social interaction, I thought I'd dig in a bit, in the hope that it would be informative and/or interesting.
Huh. I admit, I wasn't expecting that to be the part of my post people would pick out?
It doesn't seem like the kind of lesson that one could have learned only partway, at least the way I learned it. When I was growing up, I originally thought that cognitive effort and willpower were unlimited; that people were limited in how much work they could do per unit time (obviously), but that the only excuse for doing less than that amount of work was laziness. I eventually internalized (after being told, repeatedly, and after experiencing it for myself) that that's not in fact how humans work; that people do in fact experience cognitive fatigue, so that not just the output rates but the total budgets of effort and willpower are limited. In the light of that understanding, it no longer made sense to think (as I previously had) that anyone should be willing to accept any challenge to any belief at any time unless they were actively doing something else that took up all their concentration, so I stopped thinking that and therefore stopped acting on it. The same argument extends to other kinds of discussions, especially those that are fundamentally about recreation (like in MfD); there are discussions that do need to be had immediately and can't be put off, but they're rarely found in online forums!
(A related but distinct point; if everyone challenged every belief of everyone they disagreed with, and insisted on having the discussion right there instead of merely making the disagreement known, none of us would ever get any work done.)
"My belly is definitely bigger than it was before."
"I can tell," Noburi said, holding a seal up above Hazō's chest. "Actually, it's not obvious that your abdomen is distended, but there's definitely something wrong in your chakra system. It's… churning around? Maybe it's foreign chakra interacting with your own. Does it hurt?"
"No," Hazō said, still pressing his stomach gently as if he'd be able to feel the implanted chakra coil like a piece of shrapnel within him. "My chakra system feels weird and sore, but it's not hurting. I think it would hurt if I used chakra, though."
"Huh. Okay," Noburi said. A strange look passed his face. "You have a little piece of a dead man inside of you."
"I'm worried about the effect on my shadow clones," Hazō said. "Without the bioseals sustaining the transplanted coils, will they get popped by the transplant decaying inside my body?"
Hazō scanned the scroll of post-surgery information. "No, it won't pop clones. The clones can't use the cloned copies of the transplanted coils, but transplant rejection won't happen in the twelve hours that shadow clones typically last. A different bioseal element prevents rejection in my Prime body."
"And what's with this?" Noburi said, gesturing at the incisions on Hazō's chest. Apart from the line of even sutures on Hazō's abdomen, there was an additional cut over Hazō's sternum. Noburi brushed his hand from side to side, rubbing gently at the additional tiny cuts over each of Hazō's ribs. Each incision was nearly healed already, only visible as a pink-red narrow streak. "How many cuts did he make on you?"
"A lot," Hazō said, grimacing. "I think he put bioseals on my arms and legs too, and I can definitely feel more cuts on my back, running up my spine. At least he left my hands alone."
"I guess we're lucky that clean incisions from chakra scalpels heal quickly."
"Ah, here we go," Hazō said, reaching a new section of the scroll. "Apparently, all major bones got a 'minor' bioseal to suppress blood production, while the largest – my hips, shoulders, sternum, and skull – got more 'extensive' work to rekey their blood production to the new signature. What do my bones have to do with my blood?"
"Who fucking knows at this point? Maybe he's just making up bullshit, knowing that no one but Tsunade can call him out, and he just wanted to put a couple dozen extra bioseals on you for obvious reasons."
"Speaking of which…" Hazō said, lowering the scroll, "Noburi, we need to talk about what happened back there."
"The part where I tried to face down Orochimaru for your life?"
"The part where you insulted a Sannin to his face, and not only risked your own life, but sacrificed your ability to watch the surgery in the process."
"You heard him," Noburi said, scowling. "He wasn't going to let me assist with the surgery anyway. He only needs his clones. Would you believe me if I said I was improvising?"
"By pissing off the guy who had my life in the palm of his hand?" Hazō asked. "I'm not even going to get into the what-ifs there, because any situation where Orochimaru feels emotions while I'm open on his table is probably a bad one. Look, I've been there. You know I've said stupid shit to powerful people. I know how excruciatingly painful, and more importantly, how deserved the consequences are. That's why I'm telling it to you straight – you screwed up."
"Yeah, I did." Noburi sighed. "Fuck! Can you blame me? My brother is gonna die in a few days, we're all about to get eviscerated by Akatsuki, and even if we survive that, there's no guarantee that we end up as anything more than piece-of-shit missing-nin at the end of it!"
"Really, it's fine," Hazō said. "This isn't the time to second-guess ourselves, or imagine all the ways things could go wrong. We're on the cusp of a battle for the fate of the world. Do you think Jiraiya wasted time moaning about all the shit that went wrong and could yet go wrong when he was facing down Akatsuki at Nagi Island?"
"Knowing him?" Noburi asked. "Probably."
Hazō chuckled. "Right, but then he put his feelings aside and got to work killing Akatsuki. It's time we do the same. Like I said, I don't want to beat you up over this. Just treat Orochimaru like a perpetually pissed-off Tsunade. And hey, welcome to the 'I-pissed-off-all-three-Sannin-and-survived' club! It's an exclusive organization, but the members are pretty cool if you ask me."
Noburi snorted. "Sure. Definitely not a single, exceptionally lucky dweeb. Are you good to walk? Let's get you out of here before Orochimaru gets back."
o-o-o
When Orochimaru had said that the surgery would take a day, he hadn't exaggerated. Hazō had presented himself just after sunrise, and when Noburi helped him shamble out of the tent, he didn't see a hint of sunlight in the sky. They took their time skywalking back to the team's position for the sake of the many incisions on Hazō's body.
Mari raced over once they got close, the moonlight making her hair a streak of lurid purple. She stopped on her skywalkers several inches higher than Hazō and grabbed him by the shoulders to look him up and down. Something in her expression, an indescribable pain and fear, made Hazō's heart twinge, but he shoved the feelings down.
Mari pulled him into a hug. Belatedly, Hazō hugged her back.
When she let go, her face was back to business.
"How did it go?"
Hazō exhaled through his nose. "Fine. I got the bioseals. I definitely have a new chakra coil now, and while I can't verify that the blood-changing bioseal works, I don't think Orochimaru would screw me on that one. It would destroy his ability to ambush Akatsuki as well."
Mari pursed her lips. "And I don't suppose we have any clue if he added anything else?"
Hazō shrugged. "He swore an oath in front of one of his summons, so if he kills me, he's going to be known as an oathbreaker in his clan. That should cost him something between years of effort to repair his reputation and getting kicked out of the summoner position by Manda. Unfortunately, each bioseal was like a regular sealing array, composed of many elements with different functions. We have no way to check that he didn't scribe and infuse a couple extra elements in the process, especially since Noburi wasn't there to provide oversight. He can tell you about why later, though."
Mari sighed. "Okay. Main sitrep here is that Kagome's left."
"Left!?"
"We were talking about what we should do to support you in the lead-up to the Akatsuki confrontation and I think the idea of having to deal with biosealed-Hazō, who is actually Orochimaru wearing Hazō like a skinsuit, became too much for him to handle. He skywalked off. I don't know when he'll be back. My read is that he just needs space, for what that's worth."
"Mari, Kagome-sensei can't have just walked away. We need everyone onboard."
Mari shook her head. "Hazō… you know Kagome is a very unique person. He's sacrificed so much to support you in the past nine, ten months, depending on how you count the time acceleration. He gave up his relationship with Honoka, with his sealing students, with the rest of the clan… hell, he even had that weird love/hate relationship with his on-and-off Academy teaching gig. He gave it all up in a heartbeat for you, because protecting and supporting you is of the utmost importance to him.
"So, he spends months scribing seals and doing low-level research tasks of minimal value – which we know since nothing he did this past year made it into any of the anti-Akatsuki planning sessions – to protect and support you, only for you to, in his eyes, throw your life away at the finish line. You know he's been having problems with feeling worthless, like you don't respect him or value his opinions. I guess this was the explosive that broke the camel's back.
"And frankly, he's right. He's not going to contribute anything of value to the fight against Akatsuki. He doesn't have the reserves to summon a Boss summon, or even relevant jōnin summons, and none of his seals are going to be game-changing. Anything he can do, you can do better. Rocket Boots? You have your stronger, reusable version. Force Walls? Force Claws are just as deadly and far easier to deliver to an enemy when we're initiating the attack. Your explosives obviously knock anything he can make out of the water. He left a stack of privacy seals, Banshee Fuckers, and a few thousand skywalkers. He's being reasonable. Honestly, disengaging when he gets overwhelmed is real growth for him. He's just also being… Kagome."
Hazō pinched the bridge of his nose. "He's overreacting. I do respect his opinion when it makes sense, like a couple months ago when I took his advice on relocating to his known rift sites, even though it was inconvenient to us. It's just that I didn't have a choice about taking this bioseal."
Mari shrugged. "Maybe he is overreacting. Unfortunately, unless you work on your manipulation skills a lot more and start treating family really differently, you don't get to decide how other people react. Can you tell me his reaction isn't a bad one? 'I'm not going to contribute anything more, I'm just going to cause friction and make things worse whether or not Hazou is really still in there, so let me disengage' – is that the wrong call from him?"
"I doubt he thought of it that way, but I see what you're saying. Ugh, this makes things more complicated than they need to be. I guess I can get in contact with him via Arachnid once this is over and he's had some time to cool down. I just wish he'd stuck around and let me prove that I'm still… me."
Mari shrugged. "Maybe he'll clear his head and be back before we have to get moving. Otherwise, he knows to keep his head down and not make extra problems for us. To be clear, I don't think he's resentful of you for taking him out of Leaf. He knows that he couldn't have stayed there without becoming a target for Akatsuki. He's just… lost and confused, and he doesn't feel like he can trust you, or the rest of us when we've decided that we're going to keep on trusting you."
"Will it be a problem if he's not there for Naruto to give the retroactive 'you were never actually missing-nin' orders?" Hazō said. "It should probably be fine. Getting his old life in Leaf back should make things easier on him, at least."
Mari smiled sadly. "I don't think we're ever getting our old lives back. Things are never going to be the same as they were. Still, there's no giving up. We've dilly-dallied enough – come on back to the skytower so we can set a plan for the next few days."
o-o-o
"The main thing I need from you all in the next couple of days is your chakra," Hazō said to the gathered team-minus-one. "I need to practice runecrafting so that I can work quickly and flawlessly when we're on O'Uzu. Runecrafting costs a ton of chakra. That means I need all the chakra we can produce. I know, that means no training, no summoning, no extra expenses, except a test-run of summoning Cannai to make sure that the expanded coils will let me do it at O'Uzu without damage. Kei, I'll apologize to Snowflake once this is all over, but it means that we can't spare chakra for her for the next two days. I think it's best that we keep everyone at half their reserves, and have Noburi tap off any chakra regeneration above that."
Noburi and Mari nodded, as did Kei and Yuno after a second. Tenten inclined her head as if considering a proposal. Hazō was debating how to explain that this was an order, not an option, when she nodded as well.
"I know it's going to be insanely expensive," Noburi said, "but should I try summoning Gamabunta? He said that he'll fight to avenge Jiraiya, and it might be worth double-checking that I can actually get him on the field."
"Are you willing to take extra chakra coils from Orochimaru if it turns out that you can't summon Gamabunta?" Hazō asked.
Noburi paled.
"That's what I thought. In which case, spending a half-dozen runes worth of chakra on a summoning attempt that doesn't give us actionable intel is a total waste."
"Speaking of which – I don't need to remind you all that now is the time for desperate actions. Kei, Itachi casually offered to murder you and me, along with Akane and Haru. You all know what Hidan did at Bakuchioka, and if that's a normal night for him, you know he has a kill count in the five figures, maybe six. Konan killed Jiraiya, damn it! I'm willing to put my life on the line to win this fight, so please think about what you can do to get us to victory.
"Anyway, one last option for chakra – Orochimaru mentioned that he has a dozen or so ninja on hand that could be transported to O'Uzu for draining. I don't think those ninja are going to be spending chakra right now, so their regeneration is being wasted. I think Noburi and I should meet up with Orochimaru first thing tomorrow morning and tap his ninja for extra chakra for additional runes. Thoughts?"
"This does not sound like a genuine invitation for feedback, particularly following a chastisement for us not following in your desperate footsteps to defeat Akatsuki," Kei said. "Additionally, presenting your and Noburi's Prime bodies to Orochimaru presents no new threat vectors that were not present in the biosealing surgery. I see no problems with this plan beyond the obvious, previously stated ones."
"Thank you, Kei. Assuming no one has any objections, Mari, can you handle getting in contact with Endō to arrange that meeting with Orochimaru first thing tomorrow?"
o-o-o
"You require additional chakra to craft runes," Orochimaru said. "This will help you deploy runes more efficiently at O'Uzu."
"That's correct," Hazō said.
"Yes, you may drain my test subjects. You will accept that they are not currently presentable. Follow me."
Orochimaru barely finished his sentence before he turned and stalked down the stairway into the earth. Hazō stayed close on his heels, and Noburi followed suit after a cautious glance at Endō, who stayed at the entryway.
"Do you have any additional blockers?" Orochimaru asked. "You must inform me if there are actions I can trivially take that would improve our odds of victory at O'Uzu."
"Clone-hours," Hazō said. "If I can get enough chakra, I'm only limited in how many runes I can make by the number of shadow clones I can run simultaneously. Can you help me integrate additional shadow clone memories?"
Orochimaru glanced at Hazō for a moment, then turned back to the twisting hallways of the underground facility. "I have nothing that will help you – not in the time we have allotted, nor without unacceptable tradeoffs given that you are still recovering from an extensive surgery. Is the transplanted chakra coil functioning as intended?"
"It is, from what I could tell," Hazō said. "I haven't had the chance to test it extensively, but I trust your work."
"Test it," Orochimaru said. "I expect I managed the interactions with your bloodline correctly, but it is a unique enough specimen that I cannot be certain. You must verify full functionality before O'Uzu."
"I plan to do a summoning test with the extra coil tomorrow," Hazō said.
"Good. Have the Pangolin or Arachnid summoners agreed to take extra chakra coils to support summoning their clan bosses?"
"I haven't asked them. Given your reputation, I expect the answer would be no."
"My reputation," Orochimaru said with a dangerous lightness in his voice, "among other things, includes a willingness to oppose Pain at considerable risk to my own person, as well as unparalleled excellence in biosealing. However, I have little interest in forcing bioseals upon your people when contracting and summoning must ultimately be performed voluntarily. Convince or compel them, or do not. I would similarly offer combat bioseals to your jōnin, except there is insufficient time to permit comprehensive training with new capabilities, so such bioseals would be of minimal value. Wear these."
Orochimaru offered Hazō and Noburi a pair of cloth masks, and Orochimaru demonstratively slipped one over his own mouth and nose. "Use medical ninjutsu to sterilize all surfaces you use to make contact with the subjects. Sterilize yourself and your brother fully upon leaving the room," the Sannin said, glancing at Noburi, who stiffly nodded.
The doors swung open. Two rows of simple steel gurneys lined the surprisingly well-lit room wall-to-wall (idly, Hazō wondered where Orochimaru got all his medical equipment while removed from Leaf). Orochimaru had strapped people to the gurneys starting from the far wall of the room: six in one row, seven in the other. Blessedly, they were more whole than the skinfarm victim Hazou had seen in the Basement. Two had tarps covering sections of their bodies. Hazō didn't want to know what was hidden underneath.
As they stepped in, another Orochimaru standing over one of the people glanced at them, raised an eyebrow, then quickly stepped out. A couple of the people on the gurneys turned their heads to Hazō and Noburi, tracking them with dull eyes. Hazō felt a faint chill in his back. Many of the ninja Orochimaru had captured were genin, kids younger than Hazō.
"You may begin draining," Orochimaru said. "You need not preserve consciousness. Do not injure any subjects."
Noburi stiffly nodded again, glancing at Hazō, then unslung his barrel to dip the test subjects' hands in as he started walking down the rows.
"Incidentally," Orochimaru said, "I have realized that you likely wished to retain consciousness during the surgery in order to take imprints of the bioseals I was implanting. I do not readily share my work, yet it would be far more foolish for you to cut yourself open to take imprints without my presence – and I fully expect you to be capable of such foolishness. Maintenance is simpler than implantation, so when I next maintain the bioseals, I will permit you to take imprints of the bioseals then."
"I see," Hazō said. "I appreciate it. Do you have any other bioseals that would be useful for me at O'Uzu?"
Orochimaru glanced at Hazō. "You will not fight. No, I have no further bioseals that would provide marginal value, relative to the costs of an additional surgery. Do you have other seals or runes that could increase our odds of victory?"
The time-acceleration runes sprang to mind, but Hazō kept his face neutral. "I'm afraid not."
Orochimaru studied him for a moment. "A pity. Any additional advantage matters, nephew. There will be no second chances."
o-o-o
"We are going to need way more chakra when we get to O'Uzu," Hazō said to the assembled team, once Cannai had returned to the Seventh Path. "Easily ten times more than I'm using right now. We don't just need boatloads of runes, we also need to summon a half-dozen Boss summons, dozens of rank-and-file jōnin summons, and a small army of shadow clones. We could easily use hundreds of chūnin-level ninja solely for their chakra reserves."
"You said we want to ambush Akatsuki, right?" Mari asked. She was sitting with her back turned, her legs kicking off the edge of the skytower. "We can't get basically all of Leaf's chūnin and jōnin out of the village without spies from every nation figuring out that Leaf's going to war."
"That's the thing, we have options other than taking all the ninja from Leaf," Hazō said. "First idea: can we recruit Orochimaru's cultists as chakra batteries? It always sounds like there's dozens of them, and Orochimaru or Endō might know where their groups are."
"It's possible," Mari asked. "Based on my extremely limited model, I'm guessing they would join up if promised Orochimaru's attention for doing so, and I presume Orochimaru can phrase things such that the cultists don't notice that the 'attention' is vivisection. I don't think that any given biosealing cult would be that populous, though. The SSSSS in Isan was only a half-dozen people. Unless there are way more biosealing cults out there than any sane person would expect, that won't get us to our chakra target."
"Additionally, sealmasters tend to have rather restricted chakra reserves," Kei said. "Biosealers may have an advantage over regular sealmasters in this regard, given that they need to regularly overpower their test substrate in combat, but we should slightly downweight this plan's expected yields accordingly."
"I can float it by Orochimaru and see what he thinks," Hazō said. "For additional chakra, could we use the Wakahisa Clan? Orochimaru said that Akatsuki would have secured control over chakra-redistribution bloodlines, but they can't have planted Akatsuki S-rankers in Mist, which would spread them out too far. We can kill their spies, or maybe move quick enough to outrace the spies on foot, and bring the entire Wakahisa Clan to O'Uzu with us."
"Do you intend to involve Mist, or is the intention to convince the entire Wakahisa Clan to commit high treason against Mist for a gain primarily to Leaf?" Kei said.
"...is that an option?" Hazō asked.
"No."
"Then let's get Mist's approval to take the Wakahisa. With Orochimaru, Tsunade, and Leaf's summoners, we'll have a ridiculous amount of firepower to help us 'negotiate' the Mizukage or the AMI, whoever is in power in Mist now, into helping us. We could have internal support as well – for instance, Kei, would the Mori back us?"
"That question is premature," Kei said. "We should first ask whether Naruto would accept inducting Mist into the conspiracy."
"That's right," Mari said. "Mist isn't going to suicide-attack Akatsuki for no good reason, and Utakata evidently didn't object to Akatsuki killing the Seventh and extorting Leaf over it. We'd need to explain the rift and how monumentally important gaining control over it is… at which point, Mist isn't going to accept Leaf keeping control over it. They're going to angle for some sort of way to share it, which Naruto won't like. Plus, they might realize that they can't keep any control over it when Leaf has all the relevant seals and almost all the combat power. That imbalance could torpedo our alliance before it gets started."
"Indeed," Kei said. "I do not expect they would immediately betray us for Akatsuki after we contact them on account of Utakata's probable antipathy for his former captors. Still, Mist's rational response may be to eschew immediate combat and ally with the victor. Or, perhaps learning from Yagura's demise, they may instead elect to attack the weakened survivor of the Leaf-Akatsuki showdown."
"Would they?" Noburi asked, lifting his palms off Hazō's chest to look around the team with a frown. Apparently, the new biosealed chakra coil was making healing Hazō's overcharge injury challenging. "I thought Utakata was pretty deeply invested in AMITY. Backstabbing Leaf with Akatsuki dead would trigger a world war, and if Akatsuki wins, I doubt Mist would want to rock the boat. Plus, once the other nations get involved, Mist has no special advantage when it comes to handling the rift. They don't know anything about rift-moving or rift-opening seals, same as everyone else. Starting that fight is betting their future on a coin flip."
"Whereas accepting Leaf victory is accepting eventual cultural annihilation by Pax Konoha," Kei replied. "Utakata may be considerably more liberal than Yagura, but I expect even he would fight to preserve Mist's continued existence."
"If they're not willing to fight with us, they're not getting the stakes," Hazō said. "Akatsuki's last ritual was world-ending. Leaf isn't going to… right. I almost forgot all the Yagura brainwashing about how awful Leaf was."
"Indeed," Kei said. "Additionally, consider: were Mist to be convinced that the battle were both necessary and winnable, they are risking far more than Leaf is after the battle is concluded. Any Akatsuki survivor – or the inevitable AMITY retaliation in the event that Akatsuki is fully defeated – will be far more capable of leveling Mist, as Mist will not have runes to defend themselves, and in terms of S-rankers, has only Utakata and perhaps Ryūgamine."
"As an aside," Mari said, "I don't see how Akatsuki wouldn't find out a Leaf-Mist alliance against them. We're going to need hours of set-up on site, and that's plenty of time for any of their agents to notice the Wakahisa disappearing and warn their bosses. I know intelligence networks are generally terrible, but unless we find and kill every single spy in Mist, they're going to know."
"That's fine," Hazō said. "For the right quantity of chakra, we can deal with Akatsuki having forewarning."
"Even if it means Akatsuki taking the offensive on our unprepared forces, before we have all the summons and shadow clones ready? Even if it means you get attacked mid-infusion on a rune?" Mari asked.
"We can work around it…" Hazō said hesitantly. "Getting them out of their fortress would itself be a win."
"Regardless, the point is moot, I suspect," Kei said. "I will admit to my own feeble ability of social simulation, but I envision no future in which Naruto accepts adulterating Leaf's golden future by splitting it with Mist – never mind that justifying the attack as non-suicidal would require explaining the Sannin Rush strategy and possibly runecrafting. You may suggest it to Naruto, but I expect the answer will no."
"If he says yes, would the Mori back us?" Hazō asked.
"Provided that we explain that the rift will let Akatsuki resurrect Pain for unknown decades of Rinnegan-empowered tyranny, and that it will also allow Mist to resurrect its dead heroes and become co-owners of the new era? It seems probable, though I obviously can make no commitments on behalf of my birth clan."
"If Mist is out, how about recruiting Moon's ninja? They got ransacked by Hidan and Akatsuki earlier. If we explain that we're out for revenge, that they'll just need to come along at zero personal risk, and that we'll pay them tons of gold, could we get them to assist? Maybe I should be asking if they even have enough people to make it worthwhile…"
"Moon is poorly connected to the Elemental Nations and we have minimal understanding of their capabilities," Kei said. "My most recent information suggested that they have in the vicinity of one hundred ninja, though that predates Hidan's visit. This would not saturate your chakra needs."
"There's no way, right?" Noburi asked. "They'll get massacred if they do."
"We just need their chakra," Hazō said. "They don't need to fight."
"Afterwards, by Akatsuki," Noburi said. "Or by Leaf, to keep them quiet. I'm assuming they're similar to those ninja you described meeting in Neck, with their entirely-justified distrust of Elemental Nations ninja. They're not going to end up with any control over the rift, so that's out the window in terms of motivators. Revenge and money might do it…"
"I don't see it," Mari said. "Unlike Isan, which had some amount of trust with Leaf, we would be arriving and immediately asking that every single one of their ninja follow us into foreign territory of our choosing. That screams trap. I doubt they're stupid enough to go along."
"Okay…" Hazō said. "I want to preface this with the obvious point that this seems like an Orochimaru-flavored idea, and that I am proposing this idea because I am willing to take extreme measures to kill Akatsuki, not because I am somehow being puppeted by Orochimaru. What if we didn't ask for their agreement?"
"What do you mean?" Mari asked.
"What if we went to a minor village, say Tea or Moon or Noodle since they're not too out of the way to O'Uzu, and raided it? We trap them in with Force Dome and Iron Earth runes, use Air-Leadeners to keep them from escaping, then just apply a massed shadow clone assault with Tsunade, Orochimaru, and you, Mari. We fight as non-lethally as we can, knock them all out cold with Noburi's chakra-drain afterwards, then transport them to O'Uzu in giant nets so we can use them as chakra batteries."
Hazō read the horrified expressions on his team's faces and quickly raised his hands. "I know it's extreme. I know it's going to have lasting geopolitical consequences. It's just that we need chakra to beat Akatsuki, and beating Akatsuki isn't optional. Can you deny that this boosts our chances?"
Nobody spoke.
"If we lose against Akatsuki, this world just doesn't have a future. Plus, we could maybe let the captured ninja go afterwards, since they'd be unconscious and wouldn't see our runes, and Tsunade would be there to stop Orochimaru from-"
"Absolutely not," Kei said. "If they die, Leaf could perhaps avoid AMITY retaliation. If they live, not only is AMITY retaliation certain, but they will either kill Leaf ninja soon thereafter, or they will die against our defenses. Naruto will not let them live free, and I do not expect Tsunade would object to this decision. Furthermore, Orochimaru would object to killing them on grounds of wastefulness. Naruto will want Orochimaru back in Leaf to deal with Akatsuki and AMITY's possible retaliatory strikes, and he will want Orochimaru fully sated with non-Leaf test subjects so that Orochimaru does not predate upon Leaf in that critical period. I expect Naruto will not object to Orochimaru keeping any captured ninja as test subjects."
"Right, so we're clear that this is a morally atrocious idea," Mari said. "Let's be pragmatic. I think it would work. We would definitely kill some of them by accident in the fighting, but we could probably capture enough ninja to be worthwhile. Moon's less than a hundred ninja. Given Hidan being Hidan, maybe less than fifty? We could do it, but we wouldn't get the amount of chakra you want, Hazō. Tea is probably out – their clans and ninja are too spread out, and I don't think there would be a big population center of ninja better than Moon. Noodle though…"
"Noodle follows Hashirama's hidden village model, with all ninja taking residence in the country's capital," Kei said. "That capital has approximately eight-thousand residents, of which I project around two hundred are ninja. This projection is based on an estimated headcount of one hundred and twenty-five ninja, taken five years ago, and the observation that they have managed to see several years of relatively unfettered peace after evading Mist's conquest and all subsequent international conflict."
"Noodle's not strong," Mari said. "Our attack force with a dozen-or-so jōnin was going to be enough to deter retaliation. Against twenty Tsunades, they'll crumble. Thinking back to the briefings we got on Noodle's clans, I don't see any way they could defend against a mass shadow clone and summon attack. This could work."
"What would happen to the civilians?" Noburi asked. "If we can't let the ninja live because they'll trigger an AMITY retaliation, why wouldn't the civilians' testimony trigger a similar retaliation?"
"They would have to die," Hazō said, a cold feeling sinking into his stomach.
"It could look like a sealing failure," Yuno said. "Sealing failures can destroy villages. If Leaf just unleashed all its ninjutsu on the area within the Force Dome, the perfectly circular borders of the destroyed area would scream sealing failure. Fire would need to annex and patrol Noodle. Otherwise the rest of the country would fall to chakra beasts by the year's end."
"If we bring this to Orochimaru, is there any way that he doesn't push to destroy Noodle over Moon?" Hazō asked. "He doesn't care one whit about civilian or ninja casualties, he just wants to kill Akatsuki. Honestly, he might like the idea of getting extra test subjects out of the process."
"To be clear, civilian casualties are likely with Moon as well," Kei said. "Murdering them to the last may not be absolutely required, as they are sufficiently remote that without their ninja, they will have no means of contacting the greater world in a relevant timeframe. However, trapping their village in a Force Dome and fighting all their ninja will likely kill many of their civilians in the process. We can comfortably expect hundreds of civilian casualties in this path."
Mari rubbed her forehead. "There's no way Orochimaru doesn't go for Noodle if the chakra is that valuable. Worse, I think Naruto might prefer this over going to Mist. Going to Mist means opening Leaf up to Mist's backstabs, having to share the rift, involving the rest of AMITY, reopening the world war, and all that. This plan… well, you've done well with your runes. I don't want to say it's riskless – there will be some amount of ninja outside of the village that Leaf's forces will need to kill or capture, because if they see the massacre and get away, the cat's out of the bag. But the Force Domes really should enable a complete kill on the village."
"Are there logistics to consider here?" Noburi asked. "How far out of the way is Noodle? How much prep do we need for the attack? Noodle is farther from O'Uzu. How much harder would it be to transport all their ninja than transporting people from Moon?"
"Point," Kei said. "It is three days from Noodle to O'Uzu. Carrying captives will slow us further. That is ample time for a Noodle ninja on mission to return to their village, notice the massacre, and travel immediately to their closest ally, Leaf, to request aid in dealing with this problem. Unless Akatsuki's surveillance can be foiled, this prompts an investigation, at which point Akatsuki observes that Tsunade and all Leaf's summoners are mysteriously on a mission, in a world where Zoo Rush is a known capability. Akatsuki will be informed by Seventh Path communication of our incoming attack, and AMITY retaliation is certain. Each step in this chain seems much more likely than not. I cannot judge the aggregate risk immediately, but my intuition suggests that this will be unacceptable."
"Okay, so our only option is Moon, then," Hazō said, feeling a strange mixture of disappointment and relief. "It's within a day of O'Uzu, and it's out of the way, and if they have survivors, those survivors are unlikely to go to a fertility shrine right after their village is killed."
"A few dozen ninja is not going to be enough chakra for us, right?" Mari asked.
"It's going to restrict the number of runes and Sannin-clones we can deploy," Hazō said. "We can make it work if we combine it with ninja from Leaf and some biosealing cults. Unless any of you have other bright ideas?"
"The pool won't help with our summon and shadow clone-based attack plan," Mari said. "I guess we could try to find time to put you in the pool to help with runecrafting? Except most of that runecrafting is going to happen through your shadow clones, so that won't even help much."
"There aren't really chakra beasts with really high reserves," Yuno said. "Ninja have way bigger reserves than beasts."
"Chakra koi are the primary exception of note," Kei said. "Barring a raid on the Wakahisa compound, finding a sufficient number of sufficiently large schools of chakra-koi is both challenging and highly stochastic as a strategy. Inasmuch as we are prioritizing high-reliability strategies instead of rolling dice on Mist or Noodle, this does not present a viable alternative."
"...and we still haven't figured out any runes that can augment our chakra generation," Noburi said. "So we pretty much need ninja. We can't take too many Leaf ninja, because Akatsuki and AMITY will notice. So we need to attack other nations. Ugh."
"There are other ninja," Mari said. "Missing-nin. We could ask Naruto for a list of deniable assets and missing-nin vaguely in Leaf's orbit."
"We could easily spend days on each retrieval for marginal gains in overall chakra budget," Kei countered. "Dividing forces to retrieve missing-nin could also be ineffective, as many of these operatives will need to be overpowered and used as chakra batteries, as they will not go along with the assault plan willingly."
"Even with infinite gold?" Hazō asked.
"Gold does little for missing-nin who generally cannot buy seals nor spend time in cities," Kei replied.
"We should at least ask," Mari said. "If there are missing-nin that could be used in this way, Naruto would know."
"Granted," Kei said.
"We're really going to destroy Hidden Moon?" Noburi asked. "If we kill all their ninja, the same thing is going to happen to their island as would happen to Noodle, except there's not going to be a Leaf to step in and protect the civilians. It's going to become uninhabitable."
"That's not that likely," Yuno said. "The population will contract, but assuming the land is fertile enough, humans will probably survive on the island in some capacity! People can survive in the strangest places."
"We can move people off the island," Hazō said.
"Tens of thousands of foreign civilians who will ultimately be a drain on Land of Fire resources?" Kei asked. "While we are presumably busy with fending off Akatsuki survivors, AMITY assault, and optionally delving the afterlife rift to resurrect Leaf's dead S-rankers to win a decisive advantage? The idea is laughable. No, we should face reality – if we are to use Hidan's methods, let us at least comfort ourselves with the fact that we are doing it for a better cause."
o-o-o
"You wish to use my 'cults' as chakra fuel for our attack on O'Uzu? Ordinarily, I would praise your willingness to use them as raw materials, but this seems infeasible to me. They are spread out across the known world and travel frequently to avoid retaliation from local ninja for their collection of test subjects. Finding them will cost us too much time.
"Similarly, I have neither the aptitude nor the patience to negotiate for Mist's involvement. If you wish to convince the Fox to do so, I have no objection.
"Your proposal for claiming Hidden Moon's chakra however… it is interesting. Viable, even. I did not think you had the audacity to attack hidden villages head-on, though I suppose with the power you now wield, you are starting to recognize the possibilities now open to you. Yes, let us take Hidden Moon's ninja. The two days of additional time required are grating, but the additional chakra will be invaluable."
o-o-o
Having a productive discussion with his team was a healthy change of pace, but Hazō still needed to do some things alone. Once Noburi had finished healing his eternally-aching chakra coils, Hazō left the team on their skytower to return to the ground.
"Earth Element: Hiding Like a Mole."
He fell into the ground and flipped upside down, as if he were diving off a cliff into a deep bay, and continued to sink.
He swam through the earth for an interminable period of time before he broke out into an underground cavern. He dropped free of the earth and flipped again, arresting his fall with skywalkers. In the center of the cavern, lit by a single Jiraiya's Awesome Daybright Lantern, his shadow clone opened his eyes to look at him. Hazō and the clone nodded in sync. He'd sent the shadow clone here to make this cavern deep underground so that no one would know of his most dangerous research project.
He was here to recreate Elemental Mastery in a rune, the ninjutsu that had scoured Isan from the world in an eyeblink.
Around him, he saw the stone of the cavern gradually flowing away from the clone, up the walls, and to a point at the cavern's ceiling. That ceiling was drawing farther away, as the floor drew closer. The clone was still Earthshaping the cavern deeper into the ground. Once they'd gotten as deep as they could go without popping the clones on the surface, the clone would create a Force Dome rune on the surface to contain the hellstorm if it somehow broke free of its underworld prison.
The clone adjusted the Earthshaping to make an unmoving section of stone for Hazō to sit on, and Hazō started to unseal his research materials.
o-o-o
Hazō sighed and stepped back from the rune. For all the eldritch premonitions he got while infusing runes, the Superchiller rune was strangely calm. The twisted mass of crystal and stone was narrower than his shoulders, tiny compared to the room-sized Remote Explosives he was practicing elsewhere. Its hum was barely audible even in the absolute silence of the underground stone chamber, and it glowed a pale shade of blue that barely shifted, and barely stood out when surrounded by the Daybright Lanterns.
"Shadow Clone Technique."
A clone of Hazō appeared by his side as Hazō retreated to the exit tunnel, a shaft of packed earth in the stone that would let him travel with Hiding Like a Mole. Orochimaru's extra chakra coil was already proving its worth, as it let Hazō infuse a rune and cast shadow clone afterwards, both incredibly expensive tasks, without requiring him to double back to the team and refill his chakra.
Hazō counted down three minutes of time as he swam through the earth to the surface, then activated the Force Dome rune his other clone had left behind earlier. The dome itself was invisible, but as he ran to his waiting point outside the potential hellstorm area, he saw branches being snapped and trees being split by the invisible edge of the descending dome.
The timer ended, and Hazō waited for the clone's memories.
Approaching the quiescent rune.
Placing his palm against it to activate it.
Stepping back.
The cavern, getting colder and colder. Frost forming on the walls.
An indescribable moment, a crack, a flash of white and cold.
Death.
Hazō opened his eyes, reveling for a moment in the phantom sensation of a cold deeper than any ice running across his skin. It had worked.
Hazō wasn't sure if what he had was enough. When he and Orochimaru and all of Leaf stacked everything they had against Akatsuki at O'Uzu, there was no guarantee that they would win, secure the rift, and claim the future for Leaf.
But now, with the Superchiller rune giving him the untamed power of Elemental Mastery… no matter what, Akatsuki was going to lose.
o-o-o
Orochimaru of the Sannin sat in a lotus position in the middle of the clearing, wearing his combat gear and with the Snake Scroll at his back. He kept his eyes closed, and did not respond to Hazō's arrival.
Eventually, his eyes flicked open.
"It is time to leave. Have you healed and made all necessary preparations?" Orochimaru asked.
"I'm still recovering from the surgery, Lord Orochimaru," Hazō said. "I've been pushing my chakra coils hard in the past few days, and it slowed down my recovery. I will be ready for the assault on O'Uzu. I could use more time to practice with my runes, but I have achieved my main goal, and can now quickly craft all runes in my arsenal. On the way, I will prepare blanks of runes small enough to be reverse summoned."
"Tsunade can heal you on the way if required," Orochimaru said. "I will contact her immediately with the following instructions: first, contact all Leaf summoners currently on mission via the Seventh Path and instruct them to abandon their missions and meet us at a pre-designated meeting point. Then, instruct the Fox to gather any Leaf summoners except the Turtle Summoner – who is unlikely to be able to summon a Boss summon and thus provides minimal value while making the simultaneous disappearance of all Leaf summoners obvious – along with a limited selection of trustworthy jōnin and chūnin, no more than fifty in total. Send those chūnin and jōnin on reasonably-obfuscated missions, in random directions with varied timings, with similar instructions to meet us at a pre-designated meeting point. From there, we will proceed to Moon, then to O'Uzu.
"If you have any objection or suggested adjustments to this course of action, speak now."
TL;DR for readers who don't follow the mechanics – runes can be crafted and infused faster by increasing the difficulty of the check that Hazō needs to make. The difficulty of the check can also be reduced by "veterancy", i.e. practicing making the rune. By practicing, Hazō can reduce the difficulty of the runecrafting check enough to compensate for the increased difficulty of going quickly.
Hazō Prime will be under the effects of Pain Suppression to minimize the Consequence penalty from the surgery. As a reminder, Pain Suppression does not work effectively on Shadow Clones.
Given the circumstances, the full team (except Kagome) is going to be giving Hazō their full regen-worth of chakra, with no room for frivolous uses like training or summoning Snowflake. After some inevitable inefficiencies and combined with Hazō's own chakra production, that gives Hazō ~1600 CP to work with. That is about enough to make and infuse 4 timeladdered-up runes, 2 runes at regular speed, or 1 rune timeladdered-down (very coarse numbers; good enough for the current situation. I'm open if someone wants to do more precise math, for future situations).
Hazō goes to Orochimaru asking for additional chakra, either from Orochimaru or from his test subjects. Orochimaru will offer his test subjects without hesitation, so long as Hazō's using it on runes that will actually be useful in the fight. This doubles the chakra budget to 8 timeladdered-up runes, 4 runes at regular speed, or 2 runes timeladdered-down.
Time-laddering down is lethal to speed, so he'll attempt to craft 4x RER 2.0 on the first day. He will time-ladder down infusion, so it's 16 clone-hours per attempt.
Day 1
These attempts are in parallel, so veterancy from one doesn't apply to the others. I'm tentatively ruling that all SCs can invoke "Out-Touched Sealing Genius" in parallel, as I'm not sure how this interacts with the "Aspects can only be used once per scene" rule if the SCs are crafting runes separately and simultaneously. This seems like the more generous option (the alternative would restrict Hazō to 1 RER 2.0 on this first day).
Hazō successfully creates 4x RER 2.0 and reduces the crafting and infusion TN by 8.
Day 2
Hazō needs to spend 1 timeladdered-up rune-worth of chakra on Superchiller research. He needs to spend ~1 timeladdered-up rune-worth of chakra casting Earthshaping to make a suitable underground cavern for Superchiller containment. He needs to craft and infuse a Force Dome for Superchiller containment. He makes his Cannai summoning attempt today, so he needs to save roughly ~2 timeladdered-up runes worth of chakra for that. This leaves ~3x timeladdered-up runes worth of chakra for this day. He'll do 1x regular speed RER 2.0 and 1x Ninja-Radar (this is very coarse math, but I think it works out?). Hazō waits to start Superchiller research until the RER 2.0 clone is well into their rune crafting so that when he recasts SC for the RER 2.0 infusion, the clone won't have his DoB consequence. He has time, since he'll need to summon Cannai, then receive treatment to clear the Mild, then discuss with the team about chakra sourcing. This will just about saturate his available clone-hours.
Superchiller Research (Prime + SC 1 for ESing and rune activation)
Hazō is researching under the effect of 1 active rune (Force Dome). He will need to roll 1d100 to avoid complications (low is bad; probably represented as a penalty to the rolls). [1d100: 99] He's fine.
All are successful. Hazō reduces the crafting and infusion TNs for RER 2.0, Ninja-Radar, and Force Dome by 2 (total: -10 for RER 2.0, -4 for Ninja-Radar). Hazō is now fine to timeladder-up the RER2.0 crafting (provided he has FP available for rerolls on -6 or worse). He still would not want to timeladder up infusion for RER 2.0, Force Dome, or Ninja-Radar.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: I'm noticing after doing these rolls that all the practice infusions are done with DoB, which narratively triggers a consequence if Hazō spends hours in his altered state. This is necessary for research infusions, but has triggered at other times – e.g. during Hazō's special jōnin exam (though Hazō had SSA at the time). Concretely, I think that Hazō shouldn't have been able to use DoB 4 times per day for infusions, since he would have picked up too many DoB consequences. I'm not going to consider DoB consequences from lengthy rune infusion in this update as doing so without forewarning the players would be unfair, but please be aware in the future that I may apply DoB consequences for infusions >= 1 hour.
These won't be applied until at least after the showdown at O'uzu.
There are now five infused RER2.0s in a random patch of forest in southern Rice. You may vote on how you want to deal with them.
Hazō did not have time to spend several hours on the Seventh Path recruiting summons. His every waking hour in this update was spent runecrafting, including with shadow clones that would have popped had he left. He expects that he will have time to do this at some point in downtime while traveling, so he deprioritized it to grind rune veterancy.
Similarly, there was neither clone-hours nor chakra to test how much earth a Force Dome can pierce. Hazō did not want to test this with the Force Dome for Superchiller containment, since finding the point where the Force Dome failed would have meant either foregoing Force Domes for Superchiller containment, or sacrificing RER2.0 infusions to make a new Force Dome.
"Who fucking knows at this point? Maybe he's just making up bullshit, knowing that no one but Tsunade can call him out, and he just wanted to put a couple dozen extra bioseals on you for obvious reasons."
So, he spends months scribing seals and doing low-level research tasks of minimal value – which we know since nothing he did this past year made it into any of the anti-Akatsuki planning sessions
I guess we gotta make like Eggman and blow up the Moon now.
I really gotta say, and I keep saying it but it keeps bearing mentioning, but the tension is getting so thick as we approach endgame here. There's this sort of thing that really leaves an impact on me, the moment when you have to look back on old things and recontextualize them in the new context, the new paradigm. In our discussion with Uplift now, seeing us workshop ways to acquire as much chakra as physically possible with immense resources at our disposal, weighing the fate of nations against the value of their chakra... it's powerful. It drives home just how different the situation's become, just how far we've come, just how grand and extreme the upcoming battle is.
Things may settle down into more normal equilibriums after this, the stakes no longer so high that everything else becomes a resource in service of its completion, but for now it feels like flying, like we've risen above the world on a gust of hot air and getting to see it all from a new perspective as we race towards our destination.
And that stinger at the end of the Superchiller section! That's exactly what we're doing this research for, and I endorse it, but it feels so ominous at the same time! It's great.
Okay, my initial thoughts:
So our choice at this point has been constrained to a dichotomy: do we do a The Entirety Of Moon, or do we do a Oppenheimer?
We can go with the Moon plan, which will kill many thousands of civilians and I don't see a effective way to talk Oro out of, especially since we have no better ideas. Or we can reveal the Unchained Superchiller, and we can probably argue that it is effective enough that we do not need to The Entirety Of Moon.
As I see it:
The Entirety Of Moon
Lower odds of success
Kills thousands/tens of thousands of civilians.
Become Oppenheimer
Greater odds of success
Small risk of unknown, potentially very large destructive effect
Superchiller in a Force Dome should prevent a superstorm, assuming it fits (we don't have the stats yet). But anything going wrong with this plan...
Oro maybe kills us afterwards, or demands he learn the rune.
)
