Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest
- Thread starter eaglejarl
- Start date
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- naruto 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
I understand you're pissed because you put a lot of effort into your plan only to see YOUTHSUITS overtake it, but your freaking out over nothing here. First off, our escorts have met Lee and Gai before, they aren't going to jump to mindscans over acting like them. Especially since they are almost certain to have been briefed on the connection Akane has with them. Next, nearly every canon ninja who isn't green has some major eccentricity or self harmful habit. It will be recognized as a coping mechanism. Velorien would be really stretching it if he turned buying green spandex into mindscans.
Youth could just as easily help the non-Hazou members of Uplift make friends with Ino-Shika-Cho, act as Danzo repellent, or give us major points with one of Leaf's top jounin. Its all in how Velorien wants to write it/dice rolls.
At the very least Hazou will be communicating in a friendly manner with them. I'd be stunned if it got significantly farther then that no matter how Hazou was acting.
Or Hazou could man up, realize he put his foot in his mouth and get over it. Rightfully or wrongfully Keiko took Hazou's suggestions as him taking her as stupid/incompetent. If Hazou doesn't continue to push Keiko's buttons this will be a non-issue. Besides, only so much can be put into one update, and how long do you really want to spend in Konoha in OOC time?
If you mean more secure then the room he was given, thats not going to happen while we're in Konoha until we're a lot more trusted.
Because going and getting YOUTHSUITS won't make Hazou want to go see his most YOUTHFUL apprentice? This one is pretty much either locked in or locked out depending on how much time the update spans.
Short of sending someone else out to buy them for him, getting them necessitates going out among the stores and people of Konoha. Learning about Konoha will happen during this. Constantly paying attention to his surroundings has been beaten into him, he absolutely will be paying attention during this.
There's a bit of a jump. Gai and Lee get along just fine, and Hazou does know how to tone down the outbursts.
No, rather then a bonkers plan we have what is essentially a non-plan plan. In short, Hazou should act IC and follow previously established guidelines. The ones Hazou has are not terrible.
If youth gets Jiriaya to stop back us, we were going to get bent over anyways. And really, voting to buy spandex is not derailing the story.
- Location
- The Deep Blue Sea
I feel like that's an extraordinarily uncharitable reading - I've had plans beaten many times during the months I've been making them, and I don't think I've ever complained about losing per se. For example, had @Radvic's simple plan or @Dictator4Hire's alternative won, I would have been eagerly awaiting the update instead of tearing my proverbial hair out. Instead, the winning option is a clearly-joke 'plan' that is going to have profoundly suboptimal consequences that we'll have to deal with for potentially a long time.
When we've failed to specify things we assumed would be obvious before (e.g. chakra boosting away from the Hot Springs Incident), the characters didn't do those things. So why would getting green spandex make Hazou go see Akane, given that it wasn't in the (non)plan?
Not unless we ask for it, certainly.
To be completely frank, that feels far too much like rolling over for a bully to me. Keiko not only misinterpreted Hazou's intentions, she failed to confirm her interpretation, nor did she respond appropriately. She failed to honor the social mutual-disarmament treaty that is CCnJ, and we need to know if she's going to continue doing so in order to avoid relying on it in the future.
I don't think this point actually supports you. We want to spend as little OOC time as possible in Leaf, which implies putting as much as possible into each update. Having only one goal per update fails to do this.
I expect Hazou will largely ignore everyone in his quest to get a suit - again, the plan wasn't "buy a youthsuit while being friendly". If y'all wanted that, you should have put up an alternative vote.
I don't feel this needs further comment.
Voting to buy spandex and nothing else, is.
I would be very worried about how Velorien wants to write it
- Location
- Phoenix, AZ
I mean, I'm freaking out about it, and I proposed it. This is not the sunk cost fallacy. I really don't think @OliWhail is overstating the dangers here. It's possible it gets written and Hazou isn't obsessed with spandex because it'd be OOC. It's possible Noburi, Keiko, and Mari save the day, and prevent Hazou from doing too much damage and do all the things we talked about having them do to help the team. It's also possible we blow our cover, reveal our last remaining secrets to Leaf, lose our favors with Jiraiya, and get kicked out of Leaf to a waiting Zabuza. We'll find out when it gets posted. The point is we went from a relatively safe plan which facilitated growth and progress towards our goals in many ways (almost none of which risked immediate death!) to a random dice 1d100 roll in which there are, like, maybe 5 net positive outcomes. The only good thing I can identify is that I expect more people will vote in the future making this sort of tragedy harder to happen again. Anyways, Happy Thanksgiving, I hope we only mildly screwed ourselves.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
will408914
(slouching towards bethlehem)
- Location
- California
Well then.
Has the world gone insane, or has it just shown its face at last?
Greece. Austria. France. Italy. Britain. America. And now, a small group of educated people participating in a quest designed to stimulate deep thought and thorough planning.
God, I need a break...
[X] Combine Youthsuit and "Whose Leaf Does Not Wither" because please
Has the world gone insane, or has it just shown its face at last?
Greece. Austria. France. Italy. Britain. America. And now, a small group of educated people participating in a quest designed to stimulate deep thought and thorough planning.
God, I need a break...
[X] Combine Youthsuit and "Whose Leaf Does Not Wither" because please
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
You shouldn't depend on the GMs to save you from bad votes. Hazou is the avatar of the hivemind. He does what the hivemind votes to do and this time around what y'all voted for him to do was buy green spandex.
No, he really wouldn't. You're supposed to be visiting dignitaries from a small village, here to talk about an alliance with Leaf. To suddenly go out buying green spandex and shouting about Youth isn't really playing true to type, right? It would be entirely reasonable for your professionally-paranoid ninja minders to wonder what the heck you were thinking, and whose attention you were trying to attract...or what you were trying to distract them from.
Nope. You vote it, you get it.
[X] Combine Youthsuit and "Whose Leaf Does Not Wither" because please
So, since the vote plan that won was literally one line, I don't think it should result in Hazou acting too OOC. Hazou has a specific already established character, and when things we didn't plan for come up, he makes decisions in specific ways. The result of this plan should be Hazou acting entirely according to his pre-established character, with the singular exception that he's decided to buy youthsuits, for whatever reason. Hazou will simply be reacting, instead of acting pro-actively.
My personal ideal version of the upcoming update would be an otherwise normal outing, wherein Hazou buys youthsuits. Thus, the time period where Hazou was without thread guidance would be minimized. I can understand if that isn't the result, but if the QMs were feeling nice enough to limit the damage, but not nice enough to allow for a re-vote, then that would be what I would find ideal.
Either way, as written, Hazou shouldn't act out of character in any way, with the singular exception of the youthsuit purchase. As with every past update written, in the areas not covered in the plan, the times where something happens that was not planned for, Hazou should act according to his predefined character. Hazou should maneuver towards buying youthsuits, somehow, but otherwise he shouldn't act unusual. Luckily, the troll vote wasn't detailed enough to force OOC action outside of one purchase.
Screaming about Youth isn't in the action plan, and since that would be OOC, Hazou shouldn't do it.
EDIT: I mean, fuck, there's a perfectly good reason for buying youthsuits that's entirely in character, in a way that shouting about Youth in a sensitive situation isn't; he thinks it might cheer up Akane.
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Jello_Raptor
(Confirmed Jelly)
- Location
- Left of Center
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- Location
- Phoenix, AZ
And Hazou's character is one which uses things like oliwhail's plan
- Location
- Leeds
I'm curious, has anyone brought up the possibility that Mari will nope the plan?
What have I ever done that would make you think I'd give in to what was, in the context of voting for the quest, basically blackmail -- "cooperate or we derail the story, hard"? What made you think that scene would be "fun" rather than "embarrassing and a painful loss of confidence and good will", given that our main backer in Leaf has openly expressed disdain for the thing you wanted?
That wasn't what I meant. I thought that one of two things would happen: either no one would vote to buy a youthsuit and it would get quietly forgotten, or lots of people would and so you would see that it was a scene that lots of people wanted to see, and that would convince you that it wasn't such a terrible idea.
I wasn't trying to blackmail you. I just thought that if you saw the idea had popular support then you would be less opposed to it.
And I still think that it would be fun. Hazou agrees with the philosophy of Youth, even if he doesn't talk about it in that way. And this would be a show of solidarity to Akane if nothing else.
(EDIT: Or rather, that it would have been fun had it been a part of your plan instead of on its own.)
And um, I actually really like the youth thing independent of the meme. I wasn't even thinking of it as a meme plan, or a joke plan, but as just a plan without details or contingencies...
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I can accept total party kill in the Hot Spring mission arc, but I just can't accept this kind of...stupidity.
It causing me an endless amount of frustration that I can't shut off because I care too much about quest and I can't do anything about it.
So, what the hell can we or I do?
Hazou is also a character with opinions, traits, habits etc that the hive mind needs to work to change if they want too. Weve previously established Hazou likes green spandex, we as the hive mind can't just vote to change that without an incident to effect that change.
Going on and shouting about youth was never in the plan. If more then a few lines are put in about it, that's on you (or rather Velorien) and not the hivemind. Hazou has been previously established as relatively competent and not prone to pure idiocy. That would be the GMs additions scraping that, not the players.
@OliWhail My comment wasnt meant like that. I'd be sore if I were you too.
[ex-canon] Chapter 85: Unsuited to the Task
- Location
- UK
- Pronouns
- He/Him
QM Note: This update was originally canon. 2 hours and 45 minutes before voting closed, a group of regulars decided it would be funny to vote for "Action Plan: buy a YOUTHSUIT" as a replacement for the then-leading plan. Thanks to a combination of low voter turnout for the original plan and the narrow time window for other players to realise what was about to happen, the new plan won. @eaglejarl and I decided that, as the plan could only be the result of a brief burst of insanity (the RADIOACTIVE GREEN, BOLD BLOCK CAPITALS were a clue), so Hazō could only act on it as the result of a brief burst of insanity. Thus, the update you are about to read. All hell broke loose in the thread after it was posted, but amidst the ragequitters and people who simply focused on expressing their anger and hurt, there were also a few who made calm, constructive and well-reasoned arguments for why the update should be retconned. It is they who finally managed to convince us that the case for doing so was (very slightly) stronger than the case for keeping it. This update is now an omake, but it was a very, very close run thing. We hope that this cautionary tale will inspire you, in this quest or any other, to vote early, often and sensibly so that this kind of clusterfuck misunderstanding can never happen again.
-o-
"Youthsuit" Incident Report
Nara Shikamaru
"Youthsuit" Incident Report
Nara Shikamaru
At 10:30 am, after the conclusion of the initial introductions, at my request escortee Kurosawa provided us with the group's plan of action for the day (which, at this stage, was both detailed and well-reasoned in my judgement). Sarutobi Asuma cleared the plan and we departed.
The first part of the plan involved a visit to the Leaf Central Shopping District, where the escortees intended to procure basic items such as paper, high-quality wood (for escortee Wakahisa's personal use) and an array of fresh foodstuffs selected by random die roll from shops likewise selected by random die roll, and in no case brought into Leaf later than this morning (for escortee Kagome's personal use). No restricted items, or items considered to have direct or indirect combat applications, were sought or purchased.
(Note: I am hereby renewing my appeal to expand the official list of items considered to have indirect combat applications. I also request to be exempted from filling out forms 133, 207 and 443 for this purpose.)
However, at 11:30 am, while passing by a shop selling ninja training equipment, Kurosawa suddenly demanded to purchase a "youthsuit", which on further questioning was indicated to be a green spandex training suit as worn by Maito Gai and Rock Lee. This was not part of the original (cleared) shopping plan; additionally, such training suits are Class 4 items, with instances of purchase to be recorded and communicated to the Hokage's Office.
When I requested a reason for this unexpected desire, Kurosawa made incoherent statements about "having to carry the torch of Youth until she is ready to pick it up again" and "bonding with the people of Leaf through sparring with the Righteous Face Punching Style". He then went on to state his intent to purchase identical suits for the rest of his group.
Kurosawa's behaviour up until that point, including the fact that he had taken the initiative in providing the plan for the day's activities, and the respectable structure and content of that plan, suggested a calm, rational thinker whose decision-making abilities were trusted by his group. There were therefore two possible conclusions to be drawn.
1) Kurosawa was attempting to apply misdirection, signal a third party or achieve some other effect that violated the terms under which he was being escorted, with such high priority that he was prepared to be unsubtle in his acting. I considered this the more likely explanation.
2) Kurosawa was suffering from a sudden psychotic break. While less likely, this was nevertheless plausible given that being a non-Leaf ninja forced to disguise his identity at the heart of Leaf, while possessing limited freedom and being escorted by a powerful team with authorisation to read his mind or eliminate him if necessary, would have to be highly stressful. This would also be true for whatever lifestyle (which I am not cleared to know about) originally placed him in this position, especially factoring in his age.
Either of these would be a sufficient condition to authorise use of the Psycho Mind Transmission Technique to establish the subject's intentions, plans and psychological state.
However, before I could confer said authorisation as interim squad leader, we were subjected to a number of reactions from the rest of the escortees (these followed the "rest of my team" statement, though they may have been in progress from the beginning of the incident).
Escortee Kagome, who was already highly agitated, attempted to assault our team, shouting various invectives regarding "mind control worms", "loupchansen" (sp?) and "backstabbing Yamanaka stinkers". He also made a statement to the effect that if he were in possession of his seals, the entire village of Leaf would be a smoking crater right now "for daring to mess with my apprentice". Fortunately, escortee Inoue intervened and was able to restrain him from violent action, though not from his stream of loud verbal abuse.
At the same time, escortee Mori raised her hand to her forehead in a gesture of extreme weariness while politely inquiring of Yamanaka whether Leaf had yet developed a cure for the Spirit of Youth. Yamanaka, noting Mori's apparent lack of surprise at her teammates' irrational behaviour, grew suspicious, and began to speculate on the reliability of the "cognitive hazard" label, whereupon I was forced to urgently take her aside and explain that [redacted on the authority of Nara Shikaku in accordance with the Founding Accords of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, Section 3: "On the Protection of Clan Secrets"].
Kurosawa continued attempting to persuade us all to settle the disagreement through "Youthful clear communication", and insisting that all he wanted was for his entire team to "join the Brotherhood of Green Spandex, just until she's feeling better". Mori, after several attempts to force him to "save his childish delusions for a context in which they will not result in our inevitable doom", evidently abandoned the possibility of imposing order on her team, and found a nearby bench to sit on while she quietly retreated into herself. Although helpful in theory, in practice this meant that we had to further split our attention in order to make sure she did not leave stealthily while we were otherwise occupied.
While Yamanaka and I were attempting to manage the situation, Akimichi focused on dissolving the gathering crowd (the incident, unfortunately, having taken place at the heart of the shopping district). Regrettably, Akimichi has the least proficiency in deception in our team, and struggled to create a plausible cover story. Though he was struck by inspiration and initially managed to dismiss Kurosawa's proclamations about the Power of Youth as merely a disguised Rock Lee practising his usual behaviour, this fell apart when Kagome began threatening mass slaughter and strategic-scale destruction at the top of his lungs.
Inoue finally used taijutsu to render Kagome unconscious (and thus immune to the Psycho Mind Transmission Technique, for which he had now more than fulfilled the conditions). She approached us and attempted to engage us in conversation, likely attempting to reframe the situation in a way favourable to her team (or further the misdirection). Having judged that we were in a potential crisis situation, my team immediately followed standard Leaf protocol for use against a "master spy" with "highly-developed seduction skills"—knowing that her capability for deception would likely exceed our ability to recognise same, we proceeded to reject all of her attempts at social interaction to the best of our ability. Either unaware of the protocol or believing she could find a way to bypass it, Inoue attempted a variety of conversational gambits, ranging from calm reasoning to attempting to undermine our composure through sex appeal. I took advantage of my natural emotional stability to ignore all of them while limiting her access to the more vulnerable Yamanaka and Akimichi.
As Inoue retreated, presumably to plan a new approach, escortee Wakahisa approached us instead, his manner open and non-threatening. He told us that Kurosawa was merely suffering from extreme anxiety over the condition of his critically-injured teammate. As her master in the ways of Youthfulness, Kurosawa was overcompensating for her absence, and his guilt for allowing her to come to harm, by taking on her role within the group in addition to his own.
Initially, this explanation seemed surprisingly plausible. However, Yamanaka observed how improbable it was for a foreign ninja to be a "master in the ways of Youthfulness" to the extent of surpassing a Leaf ninja who had suffered from direct exposure to Rock Lee. It also occurred to me that said ninja, Ishihara Akane, was currently in no condition to be questioned, making Wakahisa's story impossible to corroborate.
Finally, the behaviour of the escortees as a group did little to dispel my suspicions, supporting as it did both the misdirection theory and the psychotic break theory. On the one hand, their erratic behaviour could plausibly have been intended to increase the confusion of the situation, thereby setting up for some form of deceit. While the objection could be raised that Kagome appears to be pathologically incapable of successful deception, it is also true that Kurosawa's actions could have been calculated to exploit Kagome's predictable reactions (especially in light of Kurosawa's planning ability).
Conversely, the probability of Kurosawa suffering from a psychotic break increased greatly if his teammates consistently behaved like this, particularly given Wakahisa's testimony and the high degree of respect shown by Kurosawa to Kagome (including addressing him as "sensei"), who as such had to be a major influence on his personality.
I therefore authorised the immediate use of the Psycho Mind Transmission Technique by Yamanaka Ino on Kurosawa Hazō, and informed the rest of the escortees that attempting to interfere with same would be considered an unambiguously hostile act.
Please see Yamanaka's report (attached) for further details, followed by a summary of the current situation and my conclusions and recommendations.
The first part of the plan involved a visit to the Leaf Central Shopping District, where the escortees intended to procure basic items such as paper, high-quality wood (for escortee Wakahisa's personal use) and an array of fresh foodstuffs selected by random die roll from shops likewise selected by random die roll, and in no case brought into Leaf later than this morning (for escortee Kagome's personal use). No restricted items, or items considered to have direct or indirect combat applications, were sought or purchased.
(Note: I am hereby renewing my appeal to expand the official list of items considered to have indirect combat applications. I also request to be exempted from filling out forms 133, 207 and 443 for this purpose.)
However, at 11:30 am, while passing by a shop selling ninja training equipment, Kurosawa suddenly demanded to purchase a "youthsuit", which on further questioning was indicated to be a green spandex training suit as worn by Maito Gai and Rock Lee. This was not part of the original (cleared) shopping plan; additionally, such training suits are Class 4 items, with instances of purchase to be recorded and communicated to the Hokage's Office.
When I requested a reason for this unexpected desire, Kurosawa made incoherent statements about "having to carry the torch of Youth until she is ready to pick it up again" and "bonding with the people of Leaf through sparring with the Righteous Face Punching Style". He then went on to state his intent to purchase identical suits for the rest of his group.
Kurosawa's behaviour up until that point, including the fact that he had taken the initiative in providing the plan for the day's activities, and the respectable structure and content of that plan, suggested a calm, rational thinker whose decision-making abilities were trusted by his group. There were therefore two possible conclusions to be drawn.
1) Kurosawa was attempting to apply misdirection, signal a third party or achieve some other effect that violated the terms under which he was being escorted, with such high priority that he was prepared to be unsubtle in his acting. I considered this the more likely explanation.
2) Kurosawa was suffering from a sudden psychotic break. While less likely, this was nevertheless plausible given that being a non-Leaf ninja forced to disguise his identity at the heart of Leaf, while possessing limited freedom and being escorted by a powerful team with authorisation to read his mind or eliminate him if necessary, would have to be highly stressful. This would also be true for whatever lifestyle (which I am not cleared to know about) originally placed him in this position, especially factoring in his age.
Either of these would be a sufficient condition to authorise use of the Psycho Mind Transmission Technique to establish the subject's intentions, plans and psychological state.
However, before I could confer said authorisation as interim squad leader, we were subjected to a number of reactions from the rest of the escortees (these followed the "rest of my team" statement, though they may have been in progress from the beginning of the incident).
Escortee Kagome, who was already highly agitated, attempted to assault our team, shouting various invectives regarding "mind control worms", "loupchansen" (sp?) and "backstabbing Yamanaka stinkers". He also made a statement to the effect that if he were in possession of his seals, the entire village of Leaf would be a smoking crater right now "for daring to mess with my apprentice". Fortunately, escortee Inoue intervened and was able to restrain him from violent action, though not from his stream of loud verbal abuse.
At the same time, escortee Mori raised her hand to her forehead in a gesture of extreme weariness while politely inquiring of Yamanaka whether Leaf had yet developed a cure for the Spirit of Youth. Yamanaka, noting Mori's apparent lack of surprise at her teammates' irrational behaviour, grew suspicious, and began to speculate on the reliability of the "cognitive hazard" label, whereupon I was forced to urgently take her aside and explain that [redacted on the authority of Nara Shikaku in accordance with the Founding Accords of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, Section 3: "On the Protection of Clan Secrets"].
Kurosawa continued attempting to persuade us all to settle the disagreement through "Youthful clear communication", and insisting that all he wanted was for his entire team to "join the Brotherhood of Green Spandex, just until she's feeling better". Mori, after several attempts to force him to "save his childish delusions for a context in which they will not result in our inevitable doom", evidently abandoned the possibility of imposing order on her team, and found a nearby bench to sit on while she quietly retreated into herself. Although helpful in theory, in practice this meant that we had to further split our attention in order to make sure she did not leave stealthily while we were otherwise occupied.
While Yamanaka and I were attempting to manage the situation, Akimichi focused on dissolving the gathering crowd (the incident, unfortunately, having taken place at the heart of the shopping district). Regrettably, Akimichi has the least proficiency in deception in our team, and struggled to create a plausible cover story. Though he was struck by inspiration and initially managed to dismiss Kurosawa's proclamations about the Power of Youth as merely a disguised Rock Lee practising his usual behaviour, this fell apart when Kagome began threatening mass slaughter and strategic-scale destruction at the top of his lungs.
Inoue finally used taijutsu to render Kagome unconscious (and thus immune to the Psycho Mind Transmission Technique, for which he had now more than fulfilled the conditions). She approached us and attempted to engage us in conversation, likely attempting to reframe the situation in a way favourable to her team (or further the misdirection). Having judged that we were in a potential crisis situation, my team immediately followed standard Leaf protocol for use against a "master spy" with "highly-developed seduction skills"—knowing that her capability for deception would likely exceed our ability to recognise same, we proceeded to reject all of her attempts at social interaction to the best of our ability. Either unaware of the protocol or believing she could find a way to bypass it, Inoue attempted a variety of conversational gambits, ranging from calm reasoning to attempting to undermine our composure through sex appeal. I took advantage of my natural emotional stability to ignore all of them while limiting her access to the more vulnerable Yamanaka and Akimichi.
As Inoue retreated, presumably to plan a new approach, escortee Wakahisa approached us instead, his manner open and non-threatening. He told us that Kurosawa was merely suffering from extreme anxiety over the condition of his critically-injured teammate. As her master in the ways of Youthfulness, Kurosawa was overcompensating for her absence, and his guilt for allowing her to come to harm, by taking on her role within the group in addition to his own.
Initially, this explanation seemed surprisingly plausible. However, Yamanaka observed how improbable it was for a foreign ninja to be a "master in the ways of Youthfulness" to the extent of surpassing a Leaf ninja who had suffered from direct exposure to Rock Lee. It also occurred to me that said ninja, Ishihara Akane, was currently in no condition to be questioned, making Wakahisa's story impossible to corroborate.
Finally, the behaviour of the escortees as a group did little to dispel my suspicions, supporting as it did both the misdirection theory and the psychotic break theory. On the one hand, their erratic behaviour could plausibly have been intended to increase the confusion of the situation, thereby setting up for some form of deceit. While the objection could be raised that Kagome appears to be pathologically incapable of successful deception, it is also true that Kurosawa's actions could have been calculated to exploit Kagome's predictable reactions (especially in light of Kurosawa's planning ability).
Conversely, the probability of Kurosawa suffering from a psychotic break increased greatly if his teammates consistently behaved like this, particularly given Wakahisa's testimony and the high degree of respect shown by Kurosawa to Kagome (including addressing him as "sensei"), who as such had to be a major influence on his personality.
I therefore authorised the immediate use of the Psycho Mind Transmission Technique by Yamanaka Ino on Kurosawa Hazō, and informed the rest of the escortees that attempting to interfere with same would be considered an unambiguously hostile act.
Please see Yamanaka's report (attached) for further details, followed by a summary of the current situation and my conclusions and recommendations.
-o-
Psycho Mind Transmission Technique Report (Kurosawa Hazō)
Yamanaka Ino
Psycho Mind Transmission Technique Report (Kurosawa Hazō)
Yamanaka Ino
There were no problems with the initial dive. Kurosawa did not resist, which was a good decision since he had no mental defence training and I would have crushed his fragile little mind like an egg demonstrated the unquestionable superiority of the Yamanaka arts. However, please note that the Psycho Mind Transmission Technique was used only for a limited period of time—we were forced to commandeer a nearby shop for privacy, and could not stay long. Additionally, I am not an advanced practitioner, so the amount of information I was able to gather was limited and there may be minor inaccuracies.
Based on what I saw, I do not believe he was suffering from a psychotic break or any other kind of spontaneous mental failure. The "youthsuit" decision was sudden and arguably out of character, but it was also linked to longer-term thoughts about "the Power of Youth" and his admiration for Ishihara Akane, with whom he associates the concept. Given the strength of his affection for Ishihara, and therefore the intensity of his present concern for her, I believe it was plausible for him to act strangely as a result of her life being placed at risk.
However, I should note that I found what the Yamanaka term an "aberrant personality manifold". While a normal person has a few different voices for their inner monologue, representing major aspects of their identity, aberrant personality manifolds contain dozens or hundreds of voices, some with convergent personalities and some which are more extreme. Little is known about this phenomenon, as known subjects can be counted on the fingers of one hand. For further information on aberrant personality manifolds, please contact one of the Yamanaka Clan elders.
My scan also did not reveal any hostile intent towards Leaf or its people (although he does have both positive and negative feelings towards Jiraiya of the Three). Kurosawa appears to have some kind of delusional beliefs about building a better world in which civilians are "uplifted" to be equal to ninja, and he wishes to ally with Leaf in general and Jiraiya in particular for this purpose.
In terms of his general focus, apart from the "uplift" beliefs (which are extremely developed, suggesting strong escapist tendencies), he is preoccupied with his team, and managing its relationships. Despite being aware of his limited social skills, he believes that through correct planning he should be able to create the healthy team dynamic he wants, both socially and practically.
He views Inoue as a mentor figure, and on various levels both an older sister and a surrogate mother (he does also dwell on the well-being of his actual mother a lot). He is worried about Inoue's cynicism and self-sacrificing tendencies, but hopes to help her through emotional support.
He is strongly concerned about Mori, whom he believes to have depressive and potentially suicidal tendencies. The situation has been becoming even worse since she confessed her love for her own master, Inoue. She tried to run away to the Summon Realm before she could be rejected, but was forced to come back and face her beloved before she was ready. Kurosawa does not know what happened, but based on what he has seen, Mori's dreams did not come true, and now she is suffering from silent heartbreak. Kurosawa is worried about this, and that her natural quietness and loner tendencies may mask a smoking explosive seal, but he has been told in no uncertain terms to keep his nose out of Inoue and Mori's relationship, and is uncertain what to do.
He has a strange relationship with Kagome, whom he is loyal to while acknowledging the fact that his master is a few petals short of a belladonna has severe psychological issues. He has great respect for Kagome's skills as a sealmaster, and does his best to humour his paranoia while supporting Inoue's efforts to help him learn to trust people again. He is concerned that Kagome will eventually snap and blow up himself/the team/everything in a one-mile radius, and believes there is a high probability that said everything will include Leaf if Kagome is allowed access to seals, since being here is making his paranoia skyrocket.
His friendship/rivalry with Wakahisa is as normal as this group gets. They compete with each other the way boys tend to, but in the end have a great deal of mutual respect. He knows that Wakahisa has a completely unreciprocated crush on Mori, but wouldn't know where to begin in helping Wakahisa deal with this (or with the deep pain Mori thoughtlessly inflicted on him while dismissing his importance to her during her confession).
Kurosawa's relationship with Ishihara is a love story for the ages, though Shikamaru claims I am biased, and so I should note that his feelings are ambiguous enough that they could merely be the greatest BFFs ever. Kurosawa mentally refers to her as "the world's best apprentice", and has somehow found himself in the position of being her "master" in "the ways of Youth". I did not seek to investigate this angle too deeply, as I have been warned I have not yet developed the mental shielding necessary to deal with Rock Lee and his kind. Kurosawa admires Ishihara's positive spirit and clear-headedness enormously. Ishihara has an ongoing personality clash with Mori, but Kurosawa has observed fewer signs of it lately. Right now, Kurosawa is terrified that Ishihara is going to die, or be horribly crippled, and I am very impressed at how well he is functioning given that the thought seems to be consuming his every waking moment.
At present, Kurosawa is attempting to decide which of Wakahisa and Mori should be the diplomatic "face" of the team, even though it is a clear-cut decision since Wakahisa is already doing it and has the necessary charisma and good looks, while Moriwouldn't know social skills if she had their summoning scroll has a poor track record with anything other than intimidation.
In regard to present circumstances, I wish to emphasise strongly that Kurosawa was not originally intending this clusterfuck misunderstanding to take place, and in fact was hoping to establish positive relations with our team and with Leaf in general.
The tactical portion of my report is more concerning.
Kurosawa Hazō has the Iron Nerve Bloodline Limit, which allows him to perfectly mimic every motion he has previously made, including drawing seals. He can also copy unknown seals if he studies them long enough. In addition, he believes that there is a possibility of his children developing the Sharingan.
He is an apprentice sealmaster who has already invented his own seals, the Misterator and the Poor Man's Yellow Flash. The first one is some kind of deliberately broken storage seal designed to work with Wakahisa's Bloodline Limit, and the second one relates to rapid movement (which I suppose makes sense given the name). He is also skilled at taijutsu, and has his own style based around feints.
Kurosawa has an incredible library of seal ideas in his head. As someone with no sealing training, I am unable to interpret it properly, though their sheer number and variety suggest that he is throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks generating as many as possible in order to filter out the valuable ones later. While I am unable to judge their practicality, they include many varieties of storage seals, explosion seals, detecting seals, mind-affecting seals and seals that affect other seals (see Appendix A for the limited selection I was able to memorise; for seals that he knows Kagome knows, see Appendix B). Kurosawa also has an insane plan to make a flying fortress using sealcrafting, which he calls "Hidden Heaven".
This concludes my report. I do not believe that further use of the Psycho Mind Transmission Technique on Kurosawa Hazō would be useful unless performed by someone with sealcrafting expertise (on the assumption that his seal ideas are of value). Given his positive intentions and general talent, I strongly recommend continuing to do whatever it is we are presently doing with him despite this incident.
Based on what I saw, I do not believe he was suffering from a psychotic break or any other kind of spontaneous mental failure. The "youthsuit" decision was sudden and arguably out of character, but it was also linked to longer-term thoughts about "the Power of Youth" and his admiration for Ishihara Akane, with whom he associates the concept. Given the strength of his affection for Ishihara, and therefore the intensity of his present concern for her, I believe it was plausible for him to act strangely as a result of her life being placed at risk.
However, I should note that I found what the Yamanaka term an "aberrant personality manifold". While a normal person has a few different voices for their inner monologue, representing major aspects of their identity, aberrant personality manifolds contain dozens or hundreds of voices, some with convergent personalities and some which are more extreme. Little is known about this phenomenon, as known subjects can be counted on the fingers of one hand. For further information on aberrant personality manifolds, please contact one of the Yamanaka Clan elders.
My scan also did not reveal any hostile intent towards Leaf or its people (although he does have both positive and negative feelings towards Jiraiya of the Three). Kurosawa appears to have some kind of delusional beliefs about building a better world in which civilians are "uplifted" to be equal to ninja, and he wishes to ally with Leaf in general and Jiraiya in particular for this purpose.
In terms of his general focus, apart from the "uplift" beliefs (which are extremely developed, suggesting strong escapist tendencies), he is preoccupied with his team, and managing its relationships. Despite being aware of his limited social skills, he believes that through correct planning he should be able to create the healthy team dynamic he wants, both socially and practically.
He views Inoue as a mentor figure, and on various levels both an older sister and a surrogate mother (he does also dwell on the well-being of his actual mother a lot). He is worried about Inoue's cynicism and self-sacrificing tendencies, but hopes to help her through emotional support.
He is strongly concerned about Mori, whom he believes to have depressive and potentially suicidal tendencies. The situation has been becoming even worse since she confessed her love for her own master, Inoue. She tried to run away to the Summon Realm before she could be rejected, but was forced to come back and face her beloved before she was ready. Kurosawa does not know what happened, but based on what he has seen, Mori's dreams did not come true, and now she is suffering from silent heartbreak. Kurosawa is worried about this, and that her natural quietness and loner tendencies may mask a smoking explosive seal, but he has been told in no uncertain terms to keep his nose out of Inoue and Mori's relationship, and is uncertain what to do.
He has a strange relationship with Kagome, whom he is loyal to while acknowledging the fact that his master is
His friendship/rivalry with Wakahisa is as normal as this group gets. They compete with each other the way boys tend to, but in the end have a great deal of mutual respect. He knows that Wakahisa has a completely unreciprocated crush on Mori, but wouldn't know where to begin in helping Wakahisa deal with this (or with the deep pain Mori thoughtlessly inflicted on him while dismissing his importance to her during her confession).
Kurosawa's relationship with Ishihara is a love story for the ages, though Shikamaru claims I am biased, and so I should note that his feelings are ambiguous enough that they could merely be the greatest BFFs ever. Kurosawa mentally refers to her as "the world's best apprentice", and has somehow found himself in the position of being her "master" in "the ways of Youth". I did not seek to investigate this angle too deeply, as I have been warned I have not yet developed the mental shielding necessary to deal with Rock Lee and his kind. Kurosawa admires Ishihara's positive spirit and clear-headedness enormously. Ishihara has an ongoing personality clash with Mori, but Kurosawa has observed fewer signs of it lately. Right now, Kurosawa is terrified that Ishihara is going to die, or be horribly crippled, and I am very impressed at how well he is functioning given that the thought seems to be consuming his every waking moment.
At present, Kurosawa is attempting to decide which of Wakahisa and Mori should be the diplomatic "face" of the team, even though it is a clear-cut decision since Wakahisa is already doing it and has the necessary charisma and good looks, while Mori
In regard to present circumstances, I wish to emphasise strongly that Kurosawa was not originally intending this
The tactical portion of my report is more concerning.
Kurosawa Hazō has the Iron Nerve Bloodline Limit, which allows him to perfectly mimic every motion he has previously made, including drawing seals. He can also copy unknown seals if he studies them long enough. In addition, he believes that there is a possibility of his children developing the Sharingan.
He is an apprentice sealmaster who has already invented his own seals, the Misterator and the Poor Man's Yellow Flash. The first one is some kind of deliberately broken storage seal designed to work with Wakahisa's Bloodline Limit, and the second one relates to rapid movement (which I suppose makes sense given the name). He is also skilled at taijutsu, and has his own style based around feints.
Kurosawa has an incredible library of seal ideas in his head. As someone with no sealing training, I am unable to interpret it properly, though their sheer number and variety suggest that he is
This concludes my report. I do not believe that further use of the Psycho Mind Transmission Technique on Kurosawa Hazō would be useful unless performed by someone with sealcrafting expertise (on the assumption that his seal ideas are of value). Given his positive intentions and general talent, I strongly recommend continuing to do whatever it is we are presently doing with him despite this incident.
-o-
Subsequent to Yamanaka's use of the Psycho Mind Transmission Technique, no further conflict took place. We urgently moved the escortees out of the area, leaving Sarutobi (who had arrived by this point) to take charge of clean-up. We then proceeded to hand them over to ANBU until such time as a senior official could decide how to process them.
My recommendation, given Yamanaka's report above, is to assign Kurosawa to a black facility for sealcrafting research (though naturally Leaf has no such sites, at least according to my security clearance) and retain the rest of the team in their current position (which I am also not cleared to know). Leaf's control of both Kurosawa and Ishihara should secure their loyalty based on their strong group bonds.
My recommendation, given Yamanaka's report above, is to assign Kurosawa to a black facility for sealcrafting research (though naturally Leaf has no such sites, at least according to my security clearance) and retain the rest of the team in their current position (which I am also not cleared to know). Leaf's control of both Kurosawa and Ishihara should secure their loyalty based on their strong group bonds.
-o-
You have earned 0 XP.
-o-
It is the evening of April 2. You are in your lodgings in a Leaf building, and it has been made clear that you are not going anywhere for the time being. Jiraiya will be questioning you tomorrow. You may converse freely, but you are almost certainly being monitored.
The rest of the team is not happy with Hazō.
What do you do?
The rest of the team is not happy with Hazō.
What do you do?
-o-
Voting closes at 9 am on Saturday 26th of November, Pacific Standard Time.
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