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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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[X] Action Plan: The Returning Heroes, OPSEC Edition
Word Count: <400
  • (Offscreenable) Meeting with Sanin
    • Akatsuki may be present in Leaf.
    • It's probably better to be smuggled/sneak in to avoid leaks.
    • We suggest discretely searching for them with Ninja Radars(use 3 so Kei/Snowflake can triangulate), then quietly setting up Boss/Essie Rush, dropping a Force Dome+Iron Earth, and forcing a fight on our terms.
      • Or, if terrain allows and Kisami isn't present, blow them up with RERs.
      • Suggest that Oro hide the rift underground ~20 miles away, then accompany us to Leaf. Oro+Manda make an extra 2 Essies of combat power, plus Oro SCs. He can double back to fetch the rift after the fight.
      • Ultimately, defer to Tsunade's lead.
      • Contact Neji to coordinate as needed.
  • Close the Rift by entering and exiting it so that Orochimaru can start moving it
  • If needed, schedule chakra deliveries with Orochimaru to minimize his travel time.
    • Ask Oro for substrate, either loads now, or modest amounts daily over the next week.
  • Head to Leaf
    • Shape additional blanks on the march, as time permits
      • Stockpile ~10x of Force Dome, Ninja Radar, and Iron Earth
    • Leave a letter/report from Kei for Kagome with Kumokogo.
    • Have Noburi monitor the Jashinist prisoner for resurrection side-effects.
  • At camp, tell Tsunade about the Bioseals.
    • High-OPSEC, Bring Noburi and the documentation Oro provided.
    • Can she check for malicious or subversive effects?
    • Would she be able to remove them? What would that entail?
    • What does she advise we do?
  • Debrief Naruto on the battle
    • Inform him of our runic capabilities(same stuff we told Tsunade and Orochimaru).
    • Repeat the "Akatsuki may be present" conversation, if appropriate.
    • Does he see any weaknesses in Leaf's defenses we need to patch?
      • Hazou plans to work on improving Ninja-Radar and Iron Earth next.
    • Ask him to have the cultist mind-scanned to determine if additional Akatsuki members were on-site.
      • Try not to kill or vegetable him, he's also our test case for resurrection side-effects.
    • When can Uplift openly act in Leaf? Hazou'd like to pick up where he left off as Clan Head.
      • What's happened to the clan during the last 6 months? Is everyone ok?
    • What the hell happened when Orochimaru went missing? Seems like all hell broke loose.
    • Tell Naruto about teaching team Uplift SC.
      • Hazou made the judgment call that this increased the probability of success. We take full responsibility.
 
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shame on you for not trusting snuncle just cause he got a little excited at the idea of vivisecting some of us. frankly we should just ask him where we're actually moving the rift, supportively :p
 
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[X] Action Plan: The Returning Heroes, OPSEC Edition
Inferno Vulpix said:
And isn't that something? Orochimaru, the Snake Sannin, one of the most evil characters in the setting, someone so pragmatic that he would betray us in a heartbeat if needbe.
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We've gone to a lot of trouble to make sure that particular need will not be.
Left-Hand Mutant said:
Naruto: nope, can't be, Oro knows it.

Hazou: Oro is a missing-nin on a deep cover mission to impersonate a Leaf nin returning from a deep cover mission as a missing-nin, and as such does not have personhood for clan secret purposes.
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There's actually a much simpler answer. Way back in chapter 295, Hazo proposed adopting Orochimaru into the clan, an idea to which the Snake Sannin was quite receptive, though negotiations stalled out over relatively superficial details - heraldry and such. The original problem which prompted that discussion ended up settled in a different way, but there was nonetheless some degree of "offer and acceptance," which I think predates most of the formal restrictions on adoption numbers. Oro having voluntarily taken up residence in what was, at the time, the official Goketsu clan compound, with no suggestion of owing rent, plus his exceedingly well-attested prior partnership with that clan's founder, might reasonably also be considered relevant evidence for various legal precedents.
More importantly, from a realpolitik standpoint, if any non-Goketsu tried to learn runecrafting without Hazo and Oro's consent, their life expectancy would be a matter of hours. It's at least as tightly secured, and difficult to re-invent, as a whole lot of stuff which other clans would strongly prefer to keep on the official "counts as a clan secret" lists, and thus those clans would oppose policies being enacted which could reasonably be interpreted as endangering that.
 
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It's so sad that Tsunade died this update. All she did was come into contact with a sealing failure effect and boom, gone, not even a corpse remaining, wandering around in the afterlife. So tragic.
 
Interestingly, this is nearly the worst-case scenario for us, barring the death of any key allies.

Hidan has a terrible matchup against Leaf's forces, as his autokill-with-blood is useless on clones/summons, most of our Essies can put him down hard enough to take him out of a fight(Rasengan/Oro Venom/Cannai vine restraints), and even his suicide techniques are self-defeating against SC/summons. Him being stranded in the afterlife dosen't reduce the Akatsuki's combat power by much, and does give him the chance to locate Pain.

Deidara is dead, but nobody cares. Once we invented Force Domes and Iron Earth, he stopped being a strategic asset against Leaf. I guess he's still good for terrorizing other non Leaf/Rock villages, but meh. He may or may not have enough chakra left to help Hidan fly around the afterlife(his filght seemingly has low-to-no upkeep cost).

On the other hand, all the Akatsuki's really dangerous/relevant members are still active on the human path, and we've tipped our hand. There's no more running around and playing "unaffiliated missing-nin" while we gear up; Leaf and Akatsuki/AMITY are going to war.

If we can force a Boss/Essieclone Rush fight against another pair of Akatsuki and take them out before they get their assault force together, we'll be in a pretty good position. If the four strongest Akatsuki plus AMITY besiege Leaf, we're gonna be in a very difficult position.

The good news is: we know where one pair of Akatsuki probably is: Leaf.
The bad news: we don't know were in Leaf they're hiding, and fighting in Leaf might cause a lot of collateral damage.

If we can sneak into Leaf, we can try to find their location with ninja-radars. Three ninja radars should let Snowflake triangulate every jounin+ sized chakra source in Leaf. Then we quietly set up Boss/Essie Rush, deploy Force Dome/Iron Earth to prevent escape, have Naruto check all target locations, and throw hands while praying for minimal collateral damage. Or if we can confirm thier location via Ninja-Radar alone, just explode the shit out of them with RER.

If Kisame is present, he'll probably use his bullshit chakra sense to notice when we start making Essieclones/Bosses, but that still gives us at least a minute to get most of our forces deployed.
 
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Me: I sadly don't have time to make a reaction post
Paperclipped:
Paperclipped said:
Plus, what are the odds Sasori made anything good, anyway?"
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Me: *sigh* I HAVE to react to THIS
Paperclipped said:
Oro had also hypothesized that Sasori had made a seal to stably hold the rift open, which was apparently easy.
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The Sasori snark (Snarksori?) is delicious
Paperclipped said:
why had Akatsuki left the rift defended by only their weakest member?
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Their fastest member to contact them from inside if he dies and come back maybe :3
Paperclipped said:
So, do you trust him?"

Hazō didn't know what to think.

"I do," Tsunade said. "Not completely. Not after… everything. But I don't think he's going to abandon Leaf to Akatsuki's mercy. I trust him. I have to."
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Oh, you knife-twister you.
(For any American readers, I am not calling Paperclipped a blade tornado.)
DanZapman said:
So does this mean Hazo counted as dead while he was being drained? Does achieving jonin aura involve enough conscious aura control that you don't get drained anymore?
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No no it's all a part of Yuno's tale about the god of death. True medics are not affected.
 
So the good news is we didn't spot Noburi's sisters repeatedly dissolving in acid.

The bad news is we didn't spot them.
 
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redzonejoe said:
How dare you put those thoughts into my brain. OH GOD GET IT OUT
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Tsunade: Found them! They were dissolving in the alkali lake actually.
Hazō: What, the lake was actually basic, not acidic?
Orochimaru: No, no, your lake was acidic. We just found a basic one a bit farther in. Then two boiling ones, one made entirely of ravenous bugs, and I think there was one with a Dragon-shaped hole, but I can only remember the hole.
He frowned.
Orochimaru: Actually, I don't think I can remember a Dragon shaped like that either. Curious.

MEANWHILE, KUMOKŌGŌ: It is of the time for wondering why bite marks on the mountains.
 
Lysbeth Succubus said:
Tsunade: Found them! They were dissolving in the alkali lake actually.
Hazō: What, the lake was actually basic, not acidic?
Orochimaru: No, no, your lake was acidic. We just found a basic one a bit farther in. Then two boiling ones, one made entirely of ravenous bugs, and I think there was one with a Dragon-shaped hole, but I can only remember the hole.
He frowned.
Orochimaru: Actually, I don't think I can remember a Dragon shaped like that either. Curious.

MEANWHILE, KUMOKŌGŌ: It is of the time for wondering why bite marks on the mountains.
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Actually dissolving a person would probably require the lake to be magic, rather than operating by any kind of chemistry. I don't think any concentration of any kind of chemical agent, even at near boiling point, will dissolve an entire person that quickly (seconds, as described) - it just takes too long to get through the flesh. (There are a bunch of videos of chicken legs and the like in various acids/oxidizers on YouTube, which seem to bear out this intuition.) Maybe boiling chromic acid or piranha solution could do it?

That said, we know from the original chapter that if you die in the afterlife, your body vanishes.
eaglejarl said:
Daizen's struggles had been enough to slip completely free from Hazō's grin, snapping his own neck in the process. He went limp, then vanished.
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So the lake doesn't need to actually dissolve the entire body, just do enough damage for the person to qualify as "dead" - which is much more plausible. In which case, it might actually be chemical in nature.
 
There could be tunnels underground.

Maybe we're lucky and Deidara is trapped in a magma chamber and dies too quickly to escape via ninjutsu.

Paperclipped said:
She looked towards the land. In the distance, she thought she saw shapes rising from the ground. Not mountains. Something about their shape was off. Too… regular. Too many flats, too many even curves, not enough jaggedness.
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Grey Sand? Trees? This?

AHHHHHHH AAAAAIZEN!!

And even if those are supposed to be like Mesa mountains or whatever, still Spirit Mexico.
 
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If the Moon ninja aren't dead yet then we should really make Tsunade aware of the OPSEC risk of killing them anywhere near the current rift location. That's close to where all the Jashinist and Rain ninja and maybe even one or more Akatsuki members are probably lurking. We need to either bring them with us to Leaf, or negotiate some kind of deal, or at the very least kill them far enough that they won't find the rift in the first few days of scouting, nor be themselves spotted by anyone near the rift as they, say, drop into an ocean of acid repeatedly.

Death is not quite the silencing tool it used to be. This has to be acknowledged and internalized.

P.S.: If I were advocating for amoral behavior I'd suggest that Orochimaru sets up something for them to be in a vegetative but alive state in some underground cave for at least two weeks. But personally I'd rather Tsunade either comes up with that herself or goes for a more ethical solution.

Edit: Tagging @Sir Stompy and @Left-Hand Mutant because I think it's important.
 
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Rafin said:
Death is not quite the silencing tool it used to be. This has to be acknowledged and internalized.
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Seeing as we're on a whole 'bringing back the dead' arc, killing the moon ninja to silence them and buy time seems... not counter-intuitive exactly, but somewhat antithetical to our overall goal. A short term necessity that goes opposite to our long-term intentions. Of course, leaf just wants to bring back leaf ninja and ensure military superiority, but we're got even bigger plans than that, right?

I would propose waking the moon ninja up long enough to explain certain things to them. They will be hostile, they will not believe us, but shortly after we give our explanation they will see the proof with their own eyes when we finally kill them and they arrive in the afterlife exactly the way we described it.

The reason why we'd go through all this trouble is that once we have the immediate situation sorted and we aren't so afraid of bringing down the entire world + Akatsuki on our heads, it would be nice to revive the moon ninja too. I think doing some fairly easy set-up now could make that future mission go from impractical (A difficult mission that, even if it succeeds, would just be increasing the number of potential foes) to downright easy (We know where they are, they know we're coming to bring them home, they have some basic understanding of why we did what we did and aren't as immediately hostile).

Hell, if another world war is brewing, being able to pull the entire ninja force of moon our of out rift like a magician pulls out rabbits could be key to deescalating the conflict.

"What atrocities? We were just hosting our new allies for a time, see? They're right here and perfectly healthy."
 
Either way that requires talking to Tsunade about them. And I think arguments that aren't naive pie in the sky stuff work better on her. Also, we probably can't have Mari coach us or sanity check us on this because they are all pretty much up for execution right now. So whatever angle of argument we go with will be the one Hazō uses.
 
CitizenTen said:
You think we could rune craft if the ninja carry us like this? Ninja are unusually smooth walkers/runners right?
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The broad rule of thumb for ninja physical skills is "Anything an Olympic athlete can do, a fully-trained ninja can do with chakra use but without ninjutsu" (though, importantly, this is not the same as having an Olympic athlete's skills in any given discipline). If an Olympic athlete couldn't pull it off and ninja have no reason to practice it as part of their training, then the average ninja probably can't do it. This certainly applies to super-smooth long-distance running.
 
Sir Stompy said:
You want to turn our Force Dome runes into a paper seal? Have you thought this through? A skywalker variant seems useful but I would probably go Earth Dome.
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I don't recall -- have we ever said that Earth Domes are spatially locked? If not, they won't be useful for skywalkers.
strange_person said:
Way back in chapter 295, Hazo proposed adopting Orochimaru into the clan, an idea to which the Snake Sannin was quite receptive, though negotiations stalled out over relatively superficial details - heraldry and such.
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Possibly I'm whooshing right now, but the actual reason was because he expected to be Clan Head.
 
Rafin said:
Either way that requires talking to Tsunade about them. And I think arguments that aren't naive pie in the sky stuff work better on her. Also, we probably can't have Mari coach us or sanity check us on this because they are all pretty much up for execution right now. So whatever angle of argument we go with will be the one Hazō uses.
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"We don't know how long Akatsuki has had the rift open, but we do know they've had, and currently have, a bunch of Jashinists running around in the afterlife, planning who-knows-what.

Holding onto the rift itself is important, but the war isn't won just yet. Our enemies can cause problems for us both within the rift and coming from Rain. If we want the manpower to tackle both obstacles appropriately... I think recruiting the dead is our best option. Not just leaf ninja, but anybody who would be willing to join us in return for a second shot at life. If we could send shadow clones, Naruto could explore the entire rift by himself, but he can't.

We might not have a hundred shadow clones available to us to even the odds, but what we do have is a bunch of unconscious ninja with a vendetta against Hidan specifically. If we're still committed to sending them to the afterlife to stop them from retaliating for kidnapping them... well, maybe we can find another use for them anyways."

That's how I would tackle that conversation. This would be followed by the details of what to tell them, how to persuade them to choose us vs Akatsuki or oblivion once they're on the other side, weighed against the risk of trying this being fairly small.
 
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eaglejarl said:
Possibly I'm whooshing right now, but the actual reason was because he expected to be Clan Head.
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Velorien said:
"We will be the Yasha Clan, although if you have alternative naming suggestions, I will consider them at the time of signing. I wish to have the transfer of power performed as efficiently as possible."

"I'm sorry?" Hazō stuttered.

"I can hardly be head of the Gōketsu Clan, now can I?" Orochimaru asked as if it were obvious. "That would be distasteful on multiple levels. As for our clan crest, it will be some variation on the ouroboros."

Hazō could feel the violent chthonic rumblings of Jiraiya turning in his grave, made even worse by the fact that the patriarch had been cremated.
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Left-Hand Mutant said:
I don't see the point of telling Naruto. Our own family assumed we were compromised to the point of equating it to suicide. This will just give Naruto more misgivings about trusting us, and I don't see how it would help anything.
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Not telling Naruto is more suspicious. All our people know and could inform him.

They Hyuuga and Sasuke can likely detect them. And we really don't know enough about the other clans. For all we know the Aburame insects will react weird around us and cause questions.

I think having Naruto's backing with an "I know whats going on and it's under control" is better then him then starting to question Hazou.
 
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