- Location
- Europe
[X] Action Plan: Journeys
Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
-
- Tags
- naruto rational rationalist romance armageddon is looking better and better damn you kishimoto explosions everywhere explosives solve everyone if in doubt surrender to the mercy of zabuza it seemed like a good idea at the time looks like a really bad case of being a jōnin my god. where does the lore end? precommitting is the winning plan screaming in kagome screw the rules i have explosives something bad might still happen sometimes you gotta sociopath stabby zabby subsection c of paragraph 9 should include we can weaponize this so hard
- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
E: I forked that plan and like the fork better.
Hmm. I guess the calculus here is weighting the value of probably running into some people on the common path vs. getting to go do something weird/exciting and also sneak in some hacking on the way.
I think I'd probably lean a lot harder to the weird/exciting, but I don't feel super strongly about it.
Last edited:
To be fair, we are going to the city where there will be lots and lots of people.
- Location
- Texas
@Paperclipped @eaglejarl @Velorien I see there are some questions regarding our current chakra amounts and wanted to help a bit.
Having said all of that, we are below the threshold in Stompy's plan, so....
[X] Action Plan: Journeys
We started the second fight with the armors with 265 CP.
We used 1(?) CP on PCJ, running total 264.
GS cast at effect 2 is 23 CP, running total 241.
This is... roughly the first round of combat? Hazo didn't call out Pantokrator's Hammer, so I'm assuming he used chakra boost at 7 for 35 CP, running total 206.
Second round of combat we used PH at effect 2 for 16 CP, running total 190 CP.
I can't really tell if this was one or two rounds of combat, and since Hazo didn't call out PH again it was probably 7x chakra boost at 35 XP once or twice, for a grand total of 155 or 120.
Having said all of that, we are below the threshold in Stompy's plan, so....
[X] Action Plan: Journeys
- Location
- Liverpool
[] Action Plan: A-spire to More
Last edited:
- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Plan for those of us who want to go to the spires no matter what, although we probably do that anyway given the likely state of our chakra.
[X] Action Plan: A-spire to More
Word Count: <300
[X] Action Plan: A-spire to More
Word Count: <300
- Travel through the Piercing Spires, collecting shimmers on the way.
- Use chakrascope and MS8 to observe a shimmer, both in its natural state and while Hazou is absorbing it. Take readings of Hazou's coils with the MS8 while he absorbs it.
- We might want to be able to create shimmers or similar objects with runes or seals one day, keep that in mind while experimenting.
- If/when Hazou fills up on chakra or has some to spare, begin to Technique Hack Improved EPJ.
- If the deva objects, tell them to stop telling Hazou how to do his job.
- Use chakrascope and MS8 to observe a shimmer, both in its natural state and while Hazou is absorbing it. Take readings of Hazou's coils with the MS8 while he absorbs it.
Last edited:
[X] Action Plan: A-spire to More
- Location
- Texas
[X] Action Plan: A-spire to More
Always love to see a tie
[x] Action Plan: A-spire to More
- Location
- Europe
[x] Training Plan: Base Stats
Hah, now it's tied with the training Plan.
I win.
Hah, now it's tied with the training Plan.
I win.
@Halberdier just FYI, editing a post made prior to the posted action plan with your vote means it shows up at the top of the tally as the winning plan.
Voting is closed.
@Velorien, @FaintlySorcerous had the winning plan this cycle.
- Location
- Europe
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Would you mind fixing the broken link?
Thank you to everyone for being patient while the QMs are travelling and/or low on spoons.
That's my fault for not double checking the pasted link. Sorry everyone.
See quoted for post to link @FaintlySorcerous
- Location
- The Soviet Republic of Canuckistan
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Done. Thank you, and thank you to @Sir Stompy for both the updated link, jutsu block, and most of the plan.
Vote closed
New
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It's sitting in QM QUINOA right now. Hopefully it will be out in the next day or two.
ponwog85: Different names would be great so it's easy to keep track of.
You are the best. When I originally wrote the chapter I had him using PH so as to conserve chakra, so let's say that Hazō is at 175 CP. If that number is too high then y'all win, if it's too low then the path drained some of his chakra. Thank you so much for doing the math. (pinging @Sir Stompy )
We'll likely also start adding "chakra changed up/down by this much" to chapters where relevant.
Thank you for getting back to us! Next time I'll do my best to tally the chakra usage since that seems to have helped.
Chapter 712: The Justice of the Cross
New
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Hazō had distinctly mixed feelings about the Piercing Spires. The giant rods, made of some dark metal that could have been iron but wasn't, felt as if they'd been driven violently into the flesh of the earth by a cold, pragmatic will. It was as if some cosmic Yagura had said, "I will place boundary markers here and here according to the map that exists in my mind", and then thought nothing of violence that reshaped the landscape itself with ruthless precision. There was a pattern, too regular to be anything but the fruit of some alien thought process, and the rods were too precisely vertical–though some of them had begun to lean over the passing of what might have been decades or millennia.
Hazō didn't like being made to follow a Yagura-like thought process, much less by a landscape that had badly healed around a series of wounds. He knew from his experiences with the Out that sometimes, an alien mindset didn't go away just because you stopped thinking about it. It was the reason he stopped himself from trying to figure out the pattern.
On the other hand, these products of geographical brutality were just so damn useful.
The spiral ridges made them easy, if time-consuming, to climb without any need for chakra adhesion, and the view when he finally made it to the top was ever so satisfying. True, the hilly landscape around him, all red clay(?) and sparse shrubs, had little to commend it to his attention. But when he surveyed the area around him and spotted shimmer after shimmer, his to take where they would be concealed from everyone else, he found himself feeling like the master of the domain, as if the rods were his tools and everything around him existed for his benefit–
It was happening already. He should grab what he could and move on quickly, just in case.
After an immeasurable number of hours, Hazō was able to identify four lights that could only be delicious, life-giving shimmers. Better yet, from a master's privileged vantage point, he could confirm that none of them showed any signs of movement. He'd learned well from his near encounter with the thing: he couldn't be sure who or what else might be interested in feeding on shimmers, but the best-case scenario was another ninja (in which case they'd be in competition, or worse, they might be outright hostile), and by definition, the other scenarios were even worse.
By the end of his journey of metaphysical gluttony, he wasn't quite full on chakra, but he felt much better about his odds the next time he found himself in a fight. It was also a relief to be able to access his utility ninjutsu without worrying about immediately tanking his combat potential.
In fact, once Hazō made it a reasonable distance away from the spires, he decided to indulge himself a little. If there was one thing he really missed about being among the living (yes, after his family, no need to roll your eyes, Noburi), it was research. Sealing research was a tricky issue in the afterlife for a variety of reasons, including lack of a Kagome-sensei-worthy research facility (or materials to improvise same) and the worrying question of what a sealing failure would do in a world whose properties he understood far less than the Human Path's. Technique development, on the other hand, didn't massively benefit from one and (probably) didn't threaten the other. In fact, he was arguably in the ideal research environment, since if he overreached and killed himself, it would only be a matter of temporary inconvenience.
For these reasons, Hazō was in a distinctly perky mood when he finally arrived at Jūjigai, variously described to him as the City of True Justice, the City of Final Liberation, and "Why would you want to visit that place? Are you suicidal?"
Jūjigai was not, as the name would suggest, a city built on a crossroads. It was, in fact, a city built on a cross.
An enormous flat shape of featureless grey stone, perhaps a kilometre across, rose from the arid barrens, reaching nearly as high as the Hokage Tower. He could see buildings of the same stone dotting the edge. Steps had been carved into the end point of the arm of the cross near him, together with a shallow ramp which must have been a nightmare to build considering the height of the overall structure (or maybe not, when you had all the stone you could possibly need, didn't get tired, and didn't have to stop working because it got dark).
Hazō could probably have walked up the side of the cross with his newly-acquired chakra, but the town's builders seemed to have been quite deliberate in restricting access to a fixed point, and there was no need to risk riling the population by sneaking in, no matter what his ninja instincts might tell him.
And indeed, up the stairs, a pair of guards waited, spears in hand and looking exactly as bored as anyone stuck on guard duty anywhere ever. Hazō wondered what would motivate somebody to torment themselves like this even after death.
"Halt, stranger," one of them said in the voice of a man paid to provide a running commentary on paint drying, and paid poorly. "State your business."
"I'm a traveller," Hazō said simply. "I'm looking to gather some information, and maybe resupply, before moving on. I don't intend to trouble anyone."
One of the guards looked at the other. Their eyes narrowed. Slowly, their expressions shifted into intimidating glares–at each other, not at him. Seconds passed as neither gave any ground. Finally, before Hazō's incredulous gaze, the two began to play rock-paper-scissors with their spare hands. He could probably have taken both of them out in an instant without taijutsu training, never mind chakra.
The losing guard spat on the ground.
"Wait here," he growled as if his defeat had been Hazō's fault. "Law says the mayor gets to meet anybody coming into the city."
The guard stalked off, presumably to get the mayor. The other guard, despite continuing to look excruciatingly bored, brushed off Hazō's attempts to start a conversation.
The mayor, when he arrived, looked much more suited to guard duty than either of the two incompetents. A towering man, built to the same scale as Captain Zabuza, he was dressed in what Hazō could only describe as barbarian chic: rich furs covering his legs and shoulders, leaving a bare torso and arms, with cryptic jagged tattoos in blue ink dividing his body like a series of cracks running through granite. Alarmingly for a civil official, he carried an enormous sledgehammer over one shoulder, the head clearly carved from the same stone as the cross beneath their feet.
As he came up to Hazō, his face cracked into an equally enormous smile.
"Welcome!" he boomed. "Welcome to Jūjigai, the only city in any world with a zero percent crime rate! Are you here to visit, settle, or free your soul from the chains of reincarnation?"
Hazō blinked, not sure which part to question first.
"Visit," he said. "What do you mean, free my soul from the chains of reincarnation?"
"Jūjigai," the mayor said proudly, "is the sacred home of the Holy Fire." He gestured in the vague direction of the centre of the cross. "In that furnace burns an eternal black flame that consumes all it touches, even human souls. Give yourself to it, and you will never come back–not here in the World Beyond, nor in any other. If your sins during life merit you an aeon of torment in the deepest bowels of Hell, then only the forgiveness of the Holy Fire can save you. Or if your soul's been ground down by rebirth after rebirth and you long only for the freedom of oblivion, then the Holy Fire is the way.
"Of course," he went on, "we have a more practical use for the blessing as well. Villages, towns, cities, countries from all around send their condemned criminals to us, and for a small fee, we carry out the only death penalty that means anything in the World Beyond."
A shiver ran down Hazō's spine.
"Why would you do that?" he asked.
The mayor snorted. "You must be new," he said. "Think about it–what do you do to punish a criminal? You can't make them forfeit property–people don't own much here, and they'll get the important things back when they die. You can't imprison them. They'll just kill themselves and reappear somewhere else. Even if you tie them up, they can always choose to pass on. You can exile them, but then they'll just go and keep committing crimes somewhere else. No, if you want to prevent crime, people have to know that they'll face real punishment for their misdeeds. That's why Jūjigai has a zero percent crime rate, and that's how we make the world a better place in every settlement within travelling distance."
Inside, Hazō reeled. There was nothing special about the death penalty in the shinobi world, where serious crimes like treason endangered the survival of the entire village. But there was something different, something more horrifying about permanent destruction of the soul. Orochimaru aside, nobody needed a punishment worse than death to prevent them from threatening those around them, and even the Hagoromo believed that sin had an expiration date: no matter how many times you had to die and be reborn, eventually you would happen to lead a life righteous enough to be embraced by the Will of Fire, and permanently become one with it after death. (That should have been Jiraiya's reward in this lifetime, and Hazō had no idea how his stepfather was taking the destruction of his deepest religious beliefs.)
"Now that you understand," the mayor said, "what's your business here?"
Hazō forced himself to calm down. Among other things, it was a basic Mist teaching that you never, ever showed weakness before an authority figure.
"I'm looking for a particular singer," he said. "They might have come through here with a strange artefact, a black triangle about this big. Do you know anything about them?"
"I remember greeting the woman," the mayor said after some thought. "I don't know where she went after that, though."
"Is there anyone interested in artefacts in the city?" Hazō pressed. "A collector, maybe?"
"I suppose there's the Hermit," the mayor said. "Funny fellow. Set up camp outside the furnace a while back. He says he wants to study it, as if it makes any sense to study a miracle. He's interested in all manner of odd things. I doubt he'll see you, though. He's… sulking, shall we say. He used to wear a magic item on his face that gave him the power to read any tongue, but the other day he leaned too far over the furnace and it fell in, and since then he hasn't even been able to read his notes. If you try talking to him, he'll only chase you out."
"Thank you," Hazō said. "That's… very helpful. Incidentally, just in case, what are the laws of this city?"
"Don't commit any crimes," the mayor said. "If there's any uncertainty about who's guilty, the mayor decides. Back in the living world, the law was corrupt and favoured the rich and powerful, with their sycophantic judges and cunning lawyers. Here, everything is simple and there's no room for injustice.
"Do you have any other questions before I get back to my work?"
Even if Hazō did, he was suddenly unsure whether he wanted to hear the answers.
Research results will be confirmed later.
You have taken measurements of the shimmers. Hazō has saved analysing them for later since he doesn't have his notes (and for those notes which he recorded into the Iron Nerve, he'd need a ton of paper and ink to write them out).
What do you do?
Voting closes on
Hazō didn't like being made to follow a Yagura-like thought process, much less by a landscape that had badly healed around a series of wounds. He knew from his experiences with the Out that sometimes, an alien mindset didn't go away just because you stopped thinking about it. It was the reason he stopped himself from trying to figure out the pattern.
On the other hand, these products of geographical brutality were just so damn useful.
The spiral ridges made them easy, if time-consuming, to climb without any need for chakra adhesion, and the view when he finally made it to the top was ever so satisfying. True, the hilly landscape around him, all red clay(?) and sparse shrubs, had little to commend it to his attention. But when he surveyed the area around him and spotted shimmer after shimmer, his to take where they would be concealed from everyone else, he found himself feeling like the master of the domain, as if the rods were his tools and everything around him existed for his benefit–
It was happening already. He should grab what he could and move on quickly, just in case.
With 40+ Athletics, Hazō doesn't need to make a roll to climb the conveniently-ridged rods. However, studying an object or area in detail is an Examination check. Hazō finds one shimmer, plus one for every shift of success.
Exploring the tops of the various rods, Hazō discovers the Scene Aspect "3,927-Kilometre Gaze" and gets a free tag on it.
Hazō: Examination 5 + 1 + 3 = 9
Over the course of his journey, Hazō discovers 4 shimmers. He gains 143 CP.
Exploring the tops of the various rods, Hazō discovers the Scene Aspect "3,927-Kilometre Gaze" and gets a free tag on it.
Hazō: Examination 5 + 1 + 3 = 9
Over the course of his journey, Hazō discovers 4 shimmers. He gains 143 CP.
After an immeasurable number of hours, Hazō was able to identify four lights that could only be delicious, life-giving shimmers. Better yet, from a master's privileged vantage point, he could confirm that none of them showed any signs of movement. He'd learned well from his near encounter with the thing: he couldn't be sure who or what else might be interested in feeding on shimmers, but the best-case scenario was another ninja (in which case they'd be in competition, or worse, they might be outright hostile), and by definition, the other scenarios were even worse.
By the end of his journey of metaphysical gluttony, he wasn't quite full on chakra, but he felt much better about his odds the next time he found himself in a fight. It was also a relief to be able to access his utility ninjutsu without worrying about immediately tanking his combat potential.
In fact, once Hazō made it a reasonable distance away from the spires, he decided to indulge himself a little. If there was one thing he really missed about being among the living (yes, after his family, no need to roll your eyes, Noburi), it was research. Sealing research was a tricky issue in the afterlife for a variety of reasons, including lack of a Kagome-sensei-worthy research facility (or materials to improvise same) and the worrying question of what a sealing failure would do in a world whose properties he understood far less than the Human Path's. Technique development, on the other hand, didn't massively benefit from one and (probably) didn't threaten the other. In fact, he was arguably in the ideal research environment, since if he overreached and killed himself, it would only be a matter of temporary inconvenience.
For these reasons, Hazō was in a distinctly perky mood when he finally arrived at Jūjigai, variously described to him as the City of True Justice, the City of Final Liberation, and "Why would you want to visit that place? Are you suicidal?"
Jūjigai was not, as the name would suggest, a city built on a crossroads. It was, in fact, a city built on a cross.
An enormous flat shape of featureless grey stone, perhaps a kilometre across, rose from the arid barrens, reaching nearly as high as the Hokage Tower. He could see buildings of the same stone dotting the edge. Steps had been carved into the end point of the arm of the cross near him, together with a shallow ramp which must have been a nightmare to build considering the height of the overall structure (or maybe not, when you had all the stone you could possibly need, didn't get tired, and didn't have to stop working because it got dark).
Hazō could probably have walked up the side of the cross with his newly-acquired chakra, but the town's builders seemed to have been quite deliberate in restricting access to a fixed point, and there was no need to risk riling the population by sneaking in, no matter what his ninja instincts might tell him.
And indeed, up the stairs, a pair of guards waited, spears in hand and looking exactly as bored as anyone stuck on guard duty anywhere ever. Hazō wondered what would motivate somebody to torment themselves like this even after death.
"Halt, stranger," one of them said in the voice of a man paid to provide a running commentary on paint drying, and paid poorly. "State your business."
"I'm a traveller," Hazō said simply. "I'm looking to gather some information, and maybe resupply, before moving on. I don't intend to trouble anyone."
One of the guards looked at the other. Their eyes narrowed. Slowly, their expressions shifted into intimidating glares–at each other, not at him. Seconds passed as neither gave any ground. Finally, before Hazō's incredulous gaze, the two began to play rock-paper-scissors with their spare hands. He could probably have taken both of them out in an instant without taijutsu training, never mind chakra.
The losing guard spat on the ground.
"Wait here," he growled as if his defeat had been Hazō's fault. "Law says the mayor gets to meet anybody coming into the city."
The guard stalked off, presumably to get the mayor. The other guard, despite continuing to look excruciatingly bored, brushed off Hazō's attempts to start a conversation.
The mayor, when he arrived, looked much more suited to guard duty than either of the two incompetents. A towering man, built to the same scale as Captain Zabuza, he was dressed in what Hazō could only describe as barbarian chic: rich furs covering his legs and shoulders, leaving a bare torso and arms, with cryptic jagged tattoos in blue ink dividing his body like a series of cracks running through granite. Alarmingly for a civil official, he carried an enormous sledgehammer over one shoulder, the head clearly carved from the same stone as the cross beneath their feet.
As he came up to Hazō, his face cracked into an equally enormous smile.
"Welcome!" he boomed. "Welcome to Jūjigai, the only city in any world with a zero percent crime rate! Are you here to visit, settle, or free your soul from the chains of reincarnation?"
Hazō blinked, not sure which part to question first.
"Visit," he said. "What do you mean, free my soul from the chains of reincarnation?"
"Jūjigai," the mayor said proudly, "is the sacred home of the Holy Fire." He gestured in the vague direction of the centre of the cross. "In that furnace burns an eternal black flame that consumes all it touches, even human souls. Give yourself to it, and you will never come back–not here in the World Beyond, nor in any other. If your sins during life merit you an aeon of torment in the deepest bowels of Hell, then only the forgiveness of the Holy Fire can save you. Or if your soul's been ground down by rebirth after rebirth and you long only for the freedom of oblivion, then the Holy Fire is the way.
"Of course," he went on, "we have a more practical use for the blessing as well. Villages, towns, cities, countries from all around send their condemned criminals to us, and for a small fee, we carry out the only death penalty that means anything in the World Beyond."
A shiver ran down Hazō's spine.
"Why would you do that?" he asked.
The mayor snorted. "You must be new," he said. "Think about it–what do you do to punish a criminal? You can't make them forfeit property–people don't own much here, and they'll get the important things back when they die. You can't imprison them. They'll just kill themselves and reappear somewhere else. Even if you tie them up, they can always choose to pass on. You can exile them, but then they'll just go and keep committing crimes somewhere else. No, if you want to prevent crime, people have to know that they'll face real punishment for their misdeeds. That's why Jūjigai has a zero percent crime rate, and that's how we make the world a better place in every settlement within travelling distance."
Inside, Hazō reeled. There was nothing special about the death penalty in the shinobi world, where serious crimes like treason endangered the survival of the entire village. But there was something different, something more horrifying about permanent destruction of the soul. Orochimaru aside, nobody needed a punishment worse than death to prevent them from threatening those around them, and even the Hagoromo believed that sin had an expiration date: no matter how many times you had to die and be reborn, eventually you would happen to lead a life righteous enough to be embraced by the Will of Fire, and permanently become one with it after death. (That should have been Jiraiya's reward in this lifetime, and Hazō had no idea how his stepfather was taking the destruction of his deepest religious beliefs.)
"Now that you understand," the mayor said, "what's your business here?"
Hazō forced himself to calm down. Among other things, it was a basic Mist teaching that you never, ever showed weakness before an authority figure.
"I'm looking for a particular singer," he said. "They might have come through here with a strange artefact, a black triangle about this big. Do you know anything about them?"
"I remember greeting the woman," the mayor said after some thought. "I don't know where she went after that, though."
"Is there anyone interested in artefacts in the city?" Hazō pressed. "A collector, maybe?"
"I suppose there's the Hermit," the mayor said. "Funny fellow. Set up camp outside the furnace a while back. He says he wants to study it, as if it makes any sense to study a miracle. He's interested in all manner of odd things. I doubt he'll see you, though. He's… sulking, shall we say. He used to wear a magic item on his face that gave him the power to read any tongue, but the other day he leaned too far over the furnace and it fell in, and since then he hasn't even been able to read his notes. If you try talking to him, he'll only chase you out."
"Thank you," Hazō said. "That's… very helpful. Incidentally, just in case, what are the laws of this city?"
"Don't commit any crimes," the mayor said. "If there's any uncertainty about who's guilty, the mayor decides. Back in the living world, the law was corrupt and favoured the rich and powerful, with their sycophantic judges and cunning lawyers. Here, everything is simple and there's no room for injustice.
"Do you have any other questions before I get back to my work?"
Even if Hazō did, he was suddenly unsure whether he wanted to hear the answers.
-o-
Research results will be confirmed later.
You have taken measurements of the shimmers. Hazō has saved analysing them for later since he doesn't have his notes (and for those notes which he recorded into the Iron Nerve, he'd need a ton of paper and ink to write them out).
-o-
What do you do?
Voting closes on
- Location
- Yes.
He lost his glasses, didn't he.