As part of the AU, we have "aged up" some characters to avoid the superpowered toddlers problem. This just means they were born relatively earlier in the timeline. More time to grow up means more mental development to be traumatized
That makes sense, since 6 year old chunin is just a dumb concept, #CurseyouKishimoto. Does that mean that's more than, like, a year between the 4th taking over and dying in this timeline? When did the 3rd war end and how long did it ask in this setting, I guess I'm asking.
More importantly: that means operation Icha Icha Inspiration is a go!
I'm down for pretty much anywhere, since we-the-playerbase don't know much about lotrol's AU Elemental Nations. I know that there's been some discussion on Discord about visiting Vegetable Country or Demon Country.
"Up, easy does it. Yep, come on. Good, that's fine. Set it down."
Hayazaki Kazuma, innkeeper of the Woolly Yak, put down the new dresser and stood up, hand instinctively going to his lower back. The young man from Kenzo's who had helped him carry the dresser set it down much more gently.
"Ah, what I wouldn't give to be as young as you are. To have the body of a twenty-year old man…" Kazuma trailed off.
The young man — Yasuo? — looked up the stairs of the inn. The steep, narrow stairs had seen better days. Some of the boards were visibly out of place, popping up as their nails failed them in old age. "I don't think I can take it up those stairs, sir."
Kazuma sputtered, "What do you mean? Kenzo told me you'd do a full delivery!"
Yasuo put his hands up. "I'm sorry sir, it's for your safety. I can come back tomorrow with someone else to try to carry it up, but I don't want to be responsible for you getting hurt."
Kazuma deflated. "Fine, fine... You know, I could bribe Bathtub Guy with a bit of his security deposit to help drag it up. I think he's up there right now."
"It's fine, sir. We can handle it tomorrow. Besides, you wouldn't want this 'Bathtub Guy' to damage your dresser again, would you?" said Yasuo, gently pushing the heavy, embossed dresser against the wall. "We'll come by in the morning to get it up."
Yasuo adjusted his cap, then he was out the door. Kazuma waited for a second, then sank into his favorite fluffy chair. Did Bathtub Guy know just how hard it was to get Kenzo to do custom jobs these days? What a pain, and what a waste of a morning. At least he would be gone in a couple days. Kazuma chuckled to himself as he let his head lean back against the wall. Yeah, he had seen much, much worse clients. Like the old lady from Rice who stayed for months and left the entire upper story with the musty and dry smell of carnivorous blue morphos. Or like the father and his three children from last year, who somehow left some dried fish in the bedding. Or like...
"Ahem."
Kazuma jolted out of his half-drowsy stupor. A customer!
"Hello, yes! Welcome to the Woolly-"
"We know. You heard from us yesterday, right?"
Kazuma blinked to get the gritty feeling out of his eyes. "Yes, I was told that a small party would be booking out our… function…. room…."
He felt his skin crawl as he surveyed the new guests. Three towering men, one who was almost as broad as he was tall. They wore an eclectic mix of outdoors clothes, farmer's gear, and silks fit for a Daimyo. They could only be ninja. Worse, the door was closed, meaning the sudden chill in the room was from one of them. A Koyasu. A demon from the cold hells, right in his inn!
One of them, clean-shaven, put his hands down gently on the counter, but Kazuma could only imagine the fractional effort he would need to break it in half. "Whatever you think, old man, now would be a good time to stop thinking it. Take a walk. Clear your mind."
Kazuma pushed himself to his feet, wincing as his knees and back complained. "I'm sorry for any inconvenience sirs, I can-"
"Get out of here."
Suddenly, Kazuma's pain seemed a lot less important. He hadn't even taken off his coat yet, so he kept his head down as he quickly walked around the counter to get to the door.
The biggest one, the mountain of a man, put his hand on Kazuma's shoulder. It took all his willpower not to yelp. He spoke, his voice deep and gravelly, "My compatriot here is crude in his speech. Let me clarify." He dug around for a moment within his light overcoat, and Kazuma started to feel the sensation in his shoulder start to fade as ice took it. "Here is eight thousand ryo. Why don't you take a nice, long walk around the city, Innkeeper Hayazaki? Let's say two, no, three hours. Maybe you can find a market stall selling fried octopus balls to warm you up."
Kazumi gripped at the pouch with his working hand as he hurried away from the ninja. He stepped out the door and glanced at the shoulder of his thick fur coat. It was stiff and brittle with ice, and as he tried moving that arm experimentally, he thought he could feel cracking as the frozen skin underneath broke.
Maybe his first stop should be a healer. They had to have something on hand for frostbite in this season, right?
o-o-o-o
"-and with that, Yūta proclaimed, 'Never again shall you return to plague the lands of mankind!'. With a single stroke of his ōdachi, he took the head of Demon Viper King, and it tumbled to the floor, motionless. At last, silence rang through the Great Hall of Ten Thousand Mirrors, as Evil was vanquished yet again."
"Lame," said Mieko.
"What!? How can you say that? The last three books have been building up to this moment!"
"I haven't read the last three books. Also, it just isn't very cool. Also, it's not very good writing. Like seriously, 'never again shall you'?"
Kakashi frowned. "It's artistic. Also, it foreshadows something in a later book that I can't say."
Mieko's lips were pursed to a side, "bad grammar is foreshadowing?"
"Alright, that's enough sass out of you. The Great Jiraiya wouldn't be taking this from you, and neither will I."
As Kakashi stepped over to her bed, he could see the panic in her eyes for a moment before she quickly tried to tamp it down. "What are you-"
She cut off as Kakashi fit the gag around her mouth. "Take a guess. I think your 'friends'", he made air-quotes, "are here, and we've burned enough time to get them comfortable. May as well get started with the head-cracking."
Mieko made an "mmmpph" against the gag, but a stern look from Kakashi was enough to quiet her. He quickly stepped through his new disguise. Swap out the ninja gear for a loose fitting formal uniform, drag the hair down over the eyes, splash of water over the head so I look like I just came out of the snow. He unsealed a platter of fresh croissants, gestured to the Earth Clone at the side to follow him after a couple of minutes, then went out into the hallway.
Room 203's resident was a middle aged man from a nearby town who had come to sponsor a trade caravan in the northeast at the festival. Kakashi knocked on his door, holding out the tray of croissants in front of him and letting his voice slip up a register as he slouched down.
"Hi I'm sorry I don't know you at all but-" he said as he opened the door, then pretended to get caught up nervously as he saw the man. "Hi, I'm sorry. I just- I-"
"What do you want, kid?"
"I'm working for Machida Hirokazu, he's a merchant, he's downstairs, I'm sorry, but I think I really annoyed him this morning when I tripped and sprayed snow all over his robes so he told me to go away and get him some croissants so I got this from a bakery two blocks over and I wanted to come in here and leave it for him but I think he's still mad at me so do you think you could just go in there and leave him the food and tell him that it's from me and I'm very sorry for spilling snow on his nice robes?"
The man seemed taken aback, but after a second, he nodded.
"Oh thank you so much! Hirokazu will be so grateful to you and hopefully he doesn't feel too bad about me and fire me or anything!" Kakashi thrust the plate into the man's hands. "He's just in the function room downstairs, thank you so much again!"
"What's your name, kid?" the man seemed confused, and he wasn't moving yet.
"Juro. Thanks!" Get going now, before the Earth Clone comes out of my room and I have to kill you.
He got the message and started down the stairs just as the Earth Clone came out of the room with a bundle of storage seals.
Kakashi slipped into 203 and closed the door behind the Earth Clone. Carefully, they set down explosive tags on opposite corners of the room, positioned above structural cross beams holding up the floor, but just right so they wouldn't take down the walls too. By the low end of the floor, the Clone unsealed a number of cauldrons filled with scalding oil, and Kakashi unsealed several heavy boulders just above where the chairs in the function room downstairs should have been.
"Three, two, one…" Kakashi whispered as he heard the man finish his walk down the steps. He quickly activated the timers on both explosive seals on the floor, then retreated to the far corner ceiling, out of reach of the scalding oil.
Downstairs, he heard a knock.
"Hi, is there a Mr. Hirokazu in here?"
The door swung open as the man let himself in.
"What are you doing?" A gruff, male voice. The Koyasu? Kakashi's hands flickered through handseals.
"I, well, let me start at the beginning. Your apprentice-"
With an ear-splitting crack, the explosives tore through the floor of the building. The heavy wooden floor and all its furniture fell, trapping the ninja beneath in a rapidly closing deathtrap, and if they tried the holes that the explosive tags left behind, they would be getting a facefull of sloshing hot oil.
Mieko's intelligence did not fail him. The Glacier ninja downstairs were well seasoned and in an instant, one of them called out a fireball ninjutsu, turning a chunk of the falling floor to ash as it ignited the oil in a massive cloud. Another called out in pain, the suddenly ignited oil burning him as he ran.
"Chidori." Kakashi said. He opened his left eye, and his whole body suddenly filled with the force of a raging storm.
Targets. They'll all die, but one dies first. There, the jōnin Mieko had pointed out, the biggest one. He had rolled under the table and kicked it up through the collapsing floor, but his vision was obscured by the sudden blossom of flame in the air. The Sharingan was not so easily fooled. Kakashi pushed off from the ceiling and rocketed down with an axe kick that cleanly broke the man's clavicle. Years of his training let the man keep his grit and lash out with a dizzyingly fast strike for the back of Kakashi's skull, but Kakashi danced around the jab and responded with a side kick that knocked Koyasu's back to the wall. Before he could stand, Kakashi followed through with the razor's edge of lightning in his hand, cutting through his belly and up, reaching for the heart-
A frigid palm thrust to his center of mass pushed Kakashi away before he could finish the kill. As Kakashi slid back to the center of the room, he spun around, the storm in his veins settling as the calm of battle slipped over him. The collapsing ceiling had been ineffective. Only one of them had been slightly burned, but the Earth Clone was dropping down for support. The other two would not pose a problem.
"Break and run!" yelled the leader, somehow still standing despite the arm-sized cone of flesh Kakashi had carved out of him. In a flash of speed, he barrelled through the back wall of the inn and jumped onto a nearby rooftop, holding a hand to the gaping wound in his stomach the whole time.
The other chūnin jumped onto rooftops, and Kakashi followed after as Obito's Sharingan traced the paths their movements would take them on. One wove handseals which Kakashi instinctively memorized. "Snow Release: Penguin Golems!" he called out, as the snow on the rooftop quickly coalesced into a group of five giant creatures. Stupid looking things with fat bellies and squat legs, they proved their merit as they immediately jumped into formation around the Nadare. He clearly felt confident in his guards, as casting the technique gave Kakashi the time he needed to close the distance.
With the jōnin neutralized, the Nadare was the next biggest threat. Though if those summons are Nadare's best, then taking over Glacier will be easier than I thought. He considered giving himself up to the exhilaration of lightning again, but decided against it. He didn't need Chidori to kill a chūnin.
Kakashi started with a kick aimed squarely at the back of his head, an attack the Sharingan told him the man couldn't dodge, but a snow golem dived in the way. The construct was surprisingly solid, and it exploded into a giant puff of powdery snow as his foot broke the surface. Two of the golems tried to tackle him, and Kakashi instinctively stuck his hand through the head of one before grabbing the other by the neck and swung it around to face the obscuring cloud. The chūnin exploded out of it a moment later, flurry of blows destroying his own construct. Kakashi lanced forward with a spinning kick, and felt his foot crush through yet another bodyguard. It took a moment for Kakashi to get out of the snow cloud, and he only saw the chūnin's fleeing back with his last bodyguard waddling after him. Fine, I'll kill your friends first.
The jōnin was limping away down a side street, leaving a generous trail of blood. Alligator's grandma could probably have finished him off at this point. Kakashi turned to the last possible target, the chūnin Koyasu.
To his credit, the man didn't even yelp in fear as Kakashi Substituted in front of him. Instead, he just dug his feet into the ground and changed direction. Kakashi followed after. Do these Snow ninja not know about Substitution…? The chūnin dropped into an alleyway and started to attack the crate in the corner a moment before Kakashi Substituted with it. Momentarily disoriented, only the Sharingan showed him the warning of a spine-shattering blow.
Kakashi jumped over a hook kick and gently pushed away a punch, ignoring the sudden freezing sensation in his fingers. The Koyasu spun through his move for a side kick, but Kakashi timed his jump so that he landed on the chūnin's outstretched leg like a perched crow. As the chūnin pulled his leg back, Kakashi dropped to the ground and spun with legs outstretched, sweeping the Koyasu off his feet and giving Kakashi the time to knee him squarely in the groin.
Koyasu hit the ground hard, and Kakashi pinned him to the ground with one knee. Don't let them get you into a grapple, Mieko had said, but this ninja wasn't even a threat. Kakashi looked down into his eyes, black and red meeting brown as the chūnin cast around for escapes.
"You don't seriously think you can escape me, do you? Give up n-"
The Koyasu pulled the same move as his senior, a simple icy palm thrust to Kakashi's center of mass that left Kakashi feeling like the reaper given his ribcage a firm squeeze. Kakashi slid away down the alleyway and up the side of the wall, rolling up against gravity with careful use of chakra adhesion. Koyasu was running again. Ah well, they never make it easy, do they? One day, I'll be like Orochimaru and they'll just give up when they see me.
Koyasu had picked another direction to flee in, but with a step, a leap, and a Substitution, he stumbled back as Kakashi readied a front kick to cave in his head. Please don't kill them, said Mieko. He snapped the kick down and broke Koyasu's ankle.
"There. No more running."
The Koyasu looked up at him with pain and hate clear in his eyes, "how- how can you-"
Kakashi silenced him with a chop to the throat. "That was a rhetorical question. I didn't even ask a question, actually. Do you want to stay right there while I hunt down your friends?"
He seemed unconscious.
"Now that's a rhetorical question."
o-o-o-o
Again, the Nadare posed the main problem. Kakashi hadn't managed to injure him, so he wasn't leaving behind a convenient breadcrumb trail of viscera like with the other Koyasu. With his bloodline out on the open tundra, he might become a problem, especially given that Kakashi was running out of chakra. Worse, he would be nearly impossible to find if he chose to hide. If Nadare were even halfway competent, Kakashi would be dogpiled by all of Hidden Glacier before the week was out.
Luckily, this was Snow country. The idiot's big, lumbering golem had left a nice trail to Nadare's location. Kakashi followed it until it ended in a large pile of snow, where its master's patience ran out. If Mieko was right and Nadare liked "thinking like he's tricky but he's actually not", he would probably take a hairpin turn here…
The wind rushed in Kakashi's hair as he spotted Nadare fleeing over rooftops. Without chakra to boost his speed, Kakashi would catch up eventually, and it looked like that would be before they reached the city limits. Kakashi opened the Sharingan as he closed in.
Nadare turned around and threw a fast and sloppy punch. Kakashi almost laughed at how easy it was to grab his arm, pull him off balance, spin behind him, yank the arm up and out of its socket, and shove him to his knees facing away from Kakashi.
"Any last words?"
"I don't-"
Kakashi slammed his knee into the back of Nadare's head, and he dropped.
"Two is technically plural. Not the best choice in my opinion. Well, maybe you'll get another go."
o-o-o-o
Kakashi turned a page as he strolled down the trail of blood. He looked up briefly as the trail stumbled into an alleyway. The scene there was horrific. Blood sprays covered the floor around a cleared area, and little chunks of flesh and innards decorated the splashes like some sort of morbid painting. It looked like the site of a makeshift self-surgery. He settled himself back into the page.
It was mid-afternoon, but this part of the city was dead quiet. Ninja fighting did tend to clear out the streets pretty quickly, one way or another. After another couple minutes, Kakashi tucked the book away and started whistling a tune. In the corners of his eyes, he spotted bystanders in their homes bravely approaching their windows and shying away as they saw the Leaf ninja. Kakashi waved to a couple of them before realizing that the blood reaching three-quarters of the way up to his shoulder probably scared them more than it reassured them. Ah well, more room for him. Kakashi appreciated a nice and calm evening.
The trail took a stuttering turn onto a different main street. Kakashi followed it and found the jōnin Koyasu waiting there for him.
"Who are you, and what do you want?"
The man clearly struggled to stay upright. He held pressure to his wound with one hand, yet blood, wet and dark, still visibly flowed out of it and over his fingers.
Kakashi did his best to imitate Nara Shikaku's best slump. He frowned, as if thinking.
"Well, that's a very deep question, and we hardly know each other. What does it mean, for someone to know who they are? What defines them? Is it what they want, like you say? Their preferences? Their dreams? Their desires?"
Midway through the sentence, the jōnin had lunged forward to catch him in a bear hug, but Kakashi calmly sidestepped and kicked him in his exposed guts. That had been enough to leave the mountain of a man as a bloody, crying mess on the floor.
"But I can try for you, since I feel like we've got off on the wrong foot."
He took the man's groan as an invitation to continue.
"My name is Hatake Kakashi. I guess I've never really thought about dreams for the future. I like to do lots of different things. And I don't really feel like telling you all about what I want right now. Does that make things clear?"
o-o-o-o
The loose change clinked through Kazuma's loose fingertips and rolled to a stop on the newly cleaned streets as the innkeeper looked at the Woolly Yak. A massive chunk of the left side of the building had collapsed inwards, and though the left wall was still standing, a circular hole poked through the side, removing enough of the structure that the wall swayed uneasily in the evening breeze.
"I'm sorry Kazuma, but you should leave here. Sage only knows if the ninja will be returning, and if they will lash out at you for whatever reason."
Kazuma didn't listen to her. He felt his knees go weak as he collapsed to the ground. The inn, built in the heart of Shibetsu by his grandfather's grandfather, as integral a part of the town's history as any other building, the inn the Daimyo once stayed in… it was destroyed. The work of his line for generations had been to care for this inn, and it hadn't always been perfect, but it had been meaningful. And now, little embers burning against the beautiful white-and-brown front facade now marred with black showed that it would never be the same again.
"Ninja!" Kumiyo quickly ran back into her house.
Kazuma had spent his life maintaining the Woolly Yak. He had to know why it had been destroyed. Why did those demons from Glacier take it from him, when he had accommodated them in all the ways that an innkeeper should?
Kazuma turned.
"Bathtub guy!?"
Kakashi turned around and saw the innkeeper standing there staring at him, mouth agape.
"Hey."
Kakashi turned back to the bathtub. Moving the chūnin inside had been easy, but the Koyasu jōnin's blood was starting to freeze against the walls of the tub, and that seemed like it would be tough to scrub out. Hm. Maybe I could pay the innkeeper to do it?
He kept on dragging the bathtub past the open-mouthed innkeeper and into the Woolly Yak. What's his issue? The right half of the building is perfectly serviceable, and that's where my room is.
"Don't leave your mouth open like that unless you're trying to catch flies. That's what my cousin's aunt's brother-in-law's daughter's cousin's mom used to tell me. Oh hey, is that frostbite medicine?"
Before Kazuma could blink, Kakashi had snatched the little tub of salve the apothecary had given him and had eaten a little dollop of it. He wiped his lips. "Wow, that tasted awful. What is it? Frostburn salve," he said reading the label. He reached in, scraped the sides of the jar, and applied it to his chest. "Ahh, that feels good. You really read my mind there. Good work, Mr. Innkeeper." His mask completely obscured his smile at the man.
The innkeeper chased after him as he entered the front door of the Woolly Yak, and the petty tyrant didn't even complain about the scrape marks from the bathtub bumping against the front step! That seemed like good character growth. Kakashi knew a little bit of demolition always helped him put things in perspective.
"What- How- Who-"
"Oh, this guy? He damaged your inn. With ninja magic, I think. He's a Glacier ninja. Is that all your questions?"
"How did you-"
"Actually, that was a rhetorical question. Here's a real one though," Kakashi said as he re-entered the main lobby of the Woolly Yak. He gestured at the steep, narrow stairs leading to the second floor. "Could you help me get this bathtub up to my room?"
o-o-o-o
Kakashi rinsed the scalpel and tucked it away in his side pouch. He really would be a much better doctor if he knew how to use a scalpel. He had poked inside the jōnin's guts with the scalpel here and there to see if it would fix anything, but honestly? He had probably made things worse. Still, Kakashi knew to always look on the bright side of life. Maybe really bad medicine was actually really good torture. Speaking of which…
Kakashi ungagged the jōnin. Koyasu Asato, if Mieko's memory for names could be trusted, had long since been conscious, which was good, since that meant that the torture helped soften him up. Now he had to get the information out of him.
"Where's Glacier?"
Asato spat blood. He spat blood again. He coughed up blood. Kakashi stepped back for a second and pulled up the rug from the floor to shield himself. Asato was having a really long, really messy coughing fit, and Kakashi wanted it to be squarely the innkeeper's problem, not his.
"Let's try that again. Where's Glacier?"
He spoke, hoarse and deep, "In the hearts of its loyal ninja, and poised behind the spines of those who would oppose it."
"Well, that's not really what I meant when I asked, you know? Am I going to have to-"
He laughed, but it turned into another fit of coughing up blood. "There's nothing you can scare me with now. I welcome the death you've brought me."
Kakashi channeled what little of his energy remained to his hands to let them light up with the green glow of medical chakra. He looked at the man and raised an eyebrow. "Now now, I don't want to cause you any pain. I just want to show you your options. First, look at Mieko over there."
"Hi!" said Mieko from her tied up position on the bed.
"She's doing pretty well because she cooperated with me."
"He beat me up first, but since then he's been seeing to my wounds and otherwise treating me well! Lots of painkillers at least! I don't think he wants to kill us? It's confusing," she said, somehow chipper and expressive despite the fact that she could only move her head.
"On the other hand, we've got these two lucky fellows over here," Kakashi said, gesturing at Koyasu Shizuru and the Nadare. They were tied up and gagged, papered in explosives, and wore heavy-duty earmuffs to boot. "I know you can probably stand up to whatever I can throw at you, but can they? Will they once I use the powers of the Sharingan?" Mieko shuddered in her bed.
Asato seemed to be doing the calculations in his poor, hollow little head, "I see…"
"And I'm not asking for secret information about your bloodline or Clan. Just for things that your goons will tell me anyway. In fact, you're strong enough that you might well be the Clan Head, so maybe for the future generations, you should consider taking my offer so you survive to teach them how to use your Frosty Flab bloodline.
"So, last chance," Kakashi said, lighting up his hands with green chakra once more, "Glacier. Where is it? Why do you have a hit on the Daimyo Kazahana?"
Asato looked like he was swallowing a venomous lemon whole, but he started to speak. "It's about sixty miles north of here. It's hidden between the sheets of ice of a glacier, and the only way in is through a network of tunnels in the ice. You'll never be able to get in. We have sensory abilities that will detect as soon as you step foot in them.
"As to Daimyo Kazahana, Nadare Rōga wants to put his brother, Dotō Kazahana in charge, as Dotō will support the conquest of Iron. We were going to spend a few years recruiting heavily and training new ninja to prepare for taking land on the south continent. The Daimyo would support conquest too if Nadare asked hard enough. However, Dotō knows how to get a Kazahana family artifact that Nadare thinks is a key. To what, I don't know, but I believe Nadare expects some hidden vault about the secrets of the Snow Release. Nadare involved Dotō to get the heirloom."
"Beautiful, that's all I needed," Kakashi said as he leaned down to apply the medical chakra to Asato's abused body. "Isn't it great how cooperation makes us all happy?"
Koyasu Asato passed away from blood loss shortly thereafter.
Prelude:
Kakashi has the Aspect "OPSEC? Cookies!" from getting Mieko to tell him about her allies' abilities. He gets a tag on each of them, and can invoke once more per fight.
Yutaka wants to do something nice for a stranger. He decides to take Kakashi's explanation at face value and deliver the baked goods downstairs for him.
Kakashi attempts to distract them with his baked goods via his patsy! On a success, he gets +1 in the first round (this really isn't substantial enough to count as a full Aspect).
Glacier Resolve vs Kakashi's Baking Block:
Kakashi (Baking): 30 - 6 (dice) = 24
Koyasu Asato (Resolve): ??
Koyasu Shizuru (Resolve): ??
Nadare Shigeru (Resolve): ?? No luck, the croissants do not even tempt them.
Kakashi made an Earth Clone earlier (52 CP, 348 CP remaining)
Kakashi's Earth Clone sets off a series of explosions and simultaneously unseals heavy boulders and cauldrons of boiling oil! The entire room below has to make an Athletics check vs 40 to dodge. As Kakashi is attacking with boiling oil, the attack is Weapons:1
Koyasu Asato (Athletics):??
Koyasu Shizuru (Athletics): ??
Nadare Shigeru (Athletics): ?? Fail! Nadare Shigeru takes 2 stress!
Kunieda Yutaka (Athletics): 4 + 10 (technically not inside the room) + 0 (dice) = 14 Yutaka takes 10 stress! That's a Mild, Medium, Severe, and 1 in the stress track! He's going to be Taken Out, dropping the Severe, and instead be traumatized by the event for years to come!
Kakashi
Normally Kakashi would target the strongest-seeming one, who dodged the collapsing ceiling the best. However, since he has Mieko's information, he knows that Asato is actually stronger than Shizuru, so he targets Asato first. He uses Chidori (Effect:6, 72 CP, 226 remaining) because he wants this to be over quickly, and he is going to tag/invoke what he can to boost that up further:
Koyasu Asato tries to use Frozen Soul: (per the narrative constraints, this is used in an exchange, which Kakashi is not engaging in because he's just using Chidori really fast. Kakashi is going to accept 1 physical stress in exchange for skipping this roll)
Kakashi (Taijutsu): 55 + 6 (Sharingan) + 6 (boost) + 6 (tag "Iconic Ninja Tactics") + 6 (tag "OPSEC? Cookies!") + 6 (Strong Fist) + 6 (Chidori) + 6 (invoke "Man on a Mission", -1 FP, 5 remaining) - 3 (dice) = 94 Kakashi rerolls (-1 FP, 4 remaining)
Kakashi (Taijutsu): 55 + 6 (Sharingan) + 6 (boost) + 6 (tag "Iconic Ninja Tactics") + 6 (tag "OPSEC? Cookies!") + 6 (Strong Fist) + 6 (Chidori) + 6 (invoke "Man on a Mission") + 3 (dice) = 100
Koyasu Asato (Taijutsu): 62 + 7 (boost) + 7 (invoke "Lord of the Koyasu", -1 FP, 3 remaining) + 7 (invoke "The Mountain, Unmoving", -1 FP, 2 remaining) + 7 (invoke "Always Expect the Worst", -1 FP, 1 remaining) - 6 (dice) = 84 Koyasu Asato rerolls (-1 FP, 0 remaining)
Koyasu Asato (Taijutsu): 62 + 7 (boost) + 7 (invoke "Lord of the Koyasu") + 7 (invoke "The Mountain, Unmoving") + 7 (invoke "Always Expect the Worst") - 9 (dice) = 81 Direct hit! Kakashi deals 7 stress, plus 4 from Chidori, for a total of 11! Asato takes a Mild, Medium, and Severe Physical Consequence, removing 9 stress. He puts the remaining 2 in his physical stress track!
Kakashi also takes 1 physical stress from hitting a Koyasu, as per his deal from earlier.
Koyasu Asato
Well, this Leaf guy is terrifying. No chance of winning, so order everyone to flee for their lives, and then do the same. Sadly, he's the first to act, and Kakashi had the chance to study the inn, and so the ceiling collapsed without giving him an easy way out. He uses his Standard to take the Maneuver "I Make my own Exits", crashing through the wall of an inn.
Koyasu Asato (Athletics): 50 - 21 (Combined Consequence Penalty; "Holding in my Guts with One Hand") + 7 (boost) + 0 (dice) = 36
Kakashi (Alertness): 40 + 5 (Sharingan) + 3 (dice) = 48
No luck getting a tag on Kakashi.
He then uses a Supplemental to move a Zone away, while also trying to use the collapsing sides of the building. The only way he can get any farther is if he Substitutes. The environment has some targets,so if he makes a TN 20 Substitution check, I'll say he can find one and move another Zone away.
Koyasu Asato (Substitution): ?? Guess someone didn't train Substitution, huh? He can't flee any more.
He ends on an adjacent rooftop, one Zone away.
Koyasu Shizuru
Wow, none of these Koyasu guys trained their Substitution. Guess they're not running away from Kakashi today.
Standard: Run one Zone away
Supplemental: Run one more Zone away.
Ends two Zones away from Kakashi
Nadare Shigeru
He's dedicated to the mission so:
Supplemental: Move to Zone with Koyasu Asato
Standard: Cast Snow Release: Penguin Golem at Effect: 5 (80 + 28*5 CP, 95 remaining). Creates 5 golems, who will, on their turn, try to bodyguard him as he leaves
Earth Clone
Is really stupid, just throwing around smoke bombs in the collapsed side of the inn
Nadare Shigeru's Golems
Make an Athletics Block on Nadare Shigeru with +4 AB (each clone after the first). He knows he can't survive this if it comes to actually being attacked, so he'll put his all into this Block.
Kakashi
Kakashi thinks that Asato isn't a threat anymore. He wants to stop the other two from running away now. First is the Nadare, whose bodyguards can't be that tough, right?
Supplemental: Move into that Zone.
Standard: Taijutsu attack Shigeru
Kakashi (Taijutsu): 55 + 6 (Sharingan) + 6 (boost) + 6 (tag "OPSEC? Cookies!") + 6 (Strong Fist) + 3 (dice) = 76 Doesn't quite beat the Block! The Penguins absorb the blow, with one remaining.
Kakashi then tries to catch up with the other Koyasu, who might actually get away if he doesn't. To get another move in, he has to use Substitution. Same difficulty:
But the conflict is not. Kakashi still needs to track down the other two before they can make it back to Glacier. He's not worried about tracking the other Koyasu since he's leaving a massive trail of blood, but the Nadare will be hard to catch over a long distance of snowy terrain, given their bloodline, so he wants to catch him within the city.
Kakashi can use two Substitutions at his leisure to catch up a little once he's close, and as luck would have it, Nadare's Snow Golem followed him for a bit before he commanded it to stop, as it was making the trail he took super obvious. Kakashi also has Mieko's intel on Nadare, so he'll use a FP to invoke that, and I'll say he knows roughly how he thinks.
Kakashi (Athletics): 50 + 10 (arbitrary bonus: 2 Substitutions to close distance, 28 CP, 56 remaining) + 6 (invoke "OPSEC? Cookies!" -1 FP, 2 remaining) - 3 (dice) = 63
Nadare (Athletics): 46 + 10 (time ladder bonus: he had ~half a minute to run away when the default time for Athletics checks is "an Instant") + 3 = 59
Yowch, not quite enough. Kakashi closes in. If he can get a solid hit, he can basically chase him down at his leisure. He uses boost and Sharingan for this one hit (50 CP, 6 remaining).
Kakashi (Taijutsu): 55 + 6 (Sharingan) + 6 (boost) + 6 (Strong Fist) + 6 (dice) = 79
Nadare Shigeru (Taijutsu): 49 + 5 (boost) - 3 (dice) = 51 Nadare takes 10 + 1 stress! He's not getting away from Kakashi today. With a Severe, Kakashi easily follows up and knocks him out.
Lastly, can Kakashi find the missing jounin? He's dead out of chakra, but he's "A Man on a Mission", so he's not going to give up until this is done. He can follow the trail of blood almost trivially. However, the jounin realizes that he can't escape without fixing that, so he'll try to patch himself up. If he fails, he might just bleed out on a bad Physique check. A Severe Consequence is default TN 30, so let's say it's a TN 30 Knowledge (Medical) check.
So, he didn't pass, but he did get +12 on the dice. I'll say he doesn't bleed out, just that Kakashi can follow his trail.
Strong Fist:
Kakashi (Athletics): 50 + 6 (Strong Fist) + 0 (dice) = 56
Koyasu Asato (Athletics): 50 - 21 (Combined Consequence Penalty; "Holding in my Guts with One Hand") + 7 (boost) - 9 (dice) = 27
Frozen Soul:
(Kakashi will take a Mild. He seriously doesn't think Asato can take him.)
Kakashi (Taijutsu): 55 + 6 (Strong Fist) + 12 (dice) = 73
Koyasu Asato (Taijutsu): 62 - 25 (Combined Consequence Penalty; "Holding in my Guts with One Hand") + 7 (boost) + 3 (dice) = 47 Not a chance.
Kakashi will take him back to the Woolly Yak and try to stabilize him. He'll take "half an hour" to do so in order to get a full 3 time-ladder bonuses.
Failure to stabilize! Kakashi can't keep him alive. Oh well, may as well interrogate him while he's in pain. First, show that you have medical ninjutsu to hint that you can save him, then show your other hostages and say that one of them will talk. Mieko will mention that he actually does do medical care, and seems to want them alive (Kakashi put her up to this):
Kakashi (Deceit): 29 - 2 (Consequence: "I'm Cool Enough") + 3 (dice) = 30
Koyasu Asato (Deceit): 24 - 11 (Combined Consequence Penalty; "Holding in my Guts with One Hand") + 3 (dice) = 16
Kakashi (Presence): 30 - 2 (Consequence: "I'm Cool Enough") + 0 (dice) = 28
Koyasu Asato (Resolve): 40 - 18 (Combined Consequence Penalty; "Holding in my Guts with One Hand") - 9 (dice) = 13
Mieko (Deceit): 23 - 9 (Combined Consequence Penalty) + 6 (dice) = 20
Koyasu Asato (Deceit): 24 - 11 (Combined Consequence Penalty; "Holding in my Guts with One Hand") + 6 (dice) = 19
Kakashi (Intimidation): 26 + 7 (Thousand-Yard Stare) - 2 (Consequence: "I'm Cool Enough") + 3 (tag "Your Life is in my Hands") + 3 (tag "One of You Will Break") +3 (tag Mieko's "He's Not That Bad…") + 0 = 40
Koyasu Asato (Resolve): 40 + ?? (Jounin-tier interrogation resistance training, TYS, dice) = ??
Asato just barely breaks before dying, but doesn't give Kakashi anything he couldn't have gotten from the others. Other two chuunin (from Mieko's squad) are fine. Kakashi dislocated their shoulders and broke their fingers and ankles to make sure they wouldn't be making any escape attempts, so they're probably not going to be terribly happy about that.
Kakashi gained 1 FP for accepting the Compel, 1 FP for winning a Conflict, 1 FP for taking a Mild Consequence. He spent 4 FP on the fight, so he's down 1 FP total.
In accordance with the choice to make a risky move that I enjoyed writing, which was dramatic and stylish, and which succeeded quite well, I am awarding a 50 XP bonus. Since this isn't the end of an arc, I can't award more, sadly, but this success will still be factored in to that award.
After interrogating the other two chūnin, Kakashi knows the location of Hidden Glacier more precisely. It's somewhere in the middle of the "O" in "S N O W" on the map. That's still quite a big area of inhospitable terrain. Koyasu Shizuru seems to hate you for being responsible for his Clan Head's death, but luckily, Shizuru doesn't know Glacier's true location either. Nadare Shigeru knows, and this is all the information you were able to get out of him with your coercive powers. If you want him to guide you to the precise location, you might need to find another tack to take with him.
Given that news is rapidly spreading through the city that there was a ninja fight, you haven't seen head nor tail of Dotō Kazahana anywhere near the Woolly Yak. You might be able to dig him up with some searching.
Hidden Glacier is about 50 strong these days. Well, 45 strong now. There are 3 other jōnin and maybe 10 chūnin. Nadare Rōga is apparently a freakishly powerful ninjutsu master, but the other two jōnin [(1) Rōga's younger sister, a recently promoted ranged weapons specialist & (2) clanless Earth/Water/Wind element ninjutsu/kenjutsu specialist] seem to be closer to Asato's power level. Kakashi thinks that standards are just lower in Snow, since Asato didn't put up half the fight a full Leaf jōnin would have, but he still probably wants to gather information on Rōga's capabilities before picking a fight in the same way as he did this time.
Kazuma the Innkeeper has decided not to ask why you have a woman tied to your bed, a corpse in your bathtub, and two men in your closet. He is drinking heavily.
Per the vote, Kakashi has decided he's going to take over Glacier, put a patsy in charge, take their best Clan secrets, copy all the existing techniques, and leave for the Eastern Continent once he's pumped them for what they're worth. Current obstacles:
Where is Glacier and how do I get in without being murdered in the tunnels, which is presumably their forte?
How strong is Rōga? How strong are the other jōnin? Could the remaining chūnin work together to be a threat?
How loyal is Mieko? The other captives? Are they problems that need to be… dealt with?
Voting Time! What do you do now?
Here are some options to get you started.
[] Chill out for a couple days and escort the Daimyo around, you earned a little break. Wait for news of your fight to reach Glacier, and let them make the first move.
[] Construct a scenario where Nadare Shigeru thinks he's been set free, and follow him back to the Hidden Village.
[] Try to frame the assassination of the Hidden Glacier ninja on Kazuma.
[] Hunt down Dotō Kazahana and figure out where the heirloom is. Use possession of the object to open contact with Rōga.
[] Hijack the Yakuza and organize them into an expedition into the wilderness to find Glacier by brute force.
[] Hijack both groups of Yakuza anyway. Why not?
[] Write-in.
Remember, we use approval voting, so you can vote for as many plans as you like. Also, feel free to ping @Paperclipped or @MMKII to ask setting or detail questions that Kakashi could plausibly know.
Voting is open, and closes at 9am London Time, Wednesday January 13.
What a monster of a chapter. Big thanks to @MMKII for making all the enemy stats and proofreading heavily. I had a super busy weekend, so I couldn't have got this out without him. Also:
I mean, the Sharingan bonus is nice, and cheaper for benefit than boosting, but 5% of total CP in upkeep every action really let's me appreciate why canon Kakashi is constantly Chakra exhausted.
I mean, the Sharingan bonus is nice, and cheaper for benefit than boosting, but 5% of total CP in upkeep every action really let's me appreciate why canon Kakashi is constantly Chakra exhausted.
I was thinking something similar. Actually using their tunnels sounds like suicide, so we might have to get in from above. We may also want to know what Koga does before we make such a... grand entrance.
I mean, the Sharingan bonus is nice, and cheaper for benefit than boosting, but 5% of total CP in upkeep every action really let's me appreciate why canon Kakashi is constantly Chakra exhausted.
[X] Kazuma the Innkeeper is a really good guy. After all the stress these Glacier ninja guys made for him, you should really do something nice for him. Oh, you know! You'll make him your pats-- ahem, your friendly leader of Glacier! He can turn the place into a resort that you could take vacations in during your future missing-non-hood. Now, to go convince him that he's the best man for the job...and then perhaps your captives... you mean your future, completely non-Sharinganed -- nope, nope, nope; they're doing this completely due to your overwhelmingly charming self -- revolutionists.
Why not? We have a right as Kakashi Hatake to be utterly badass and do crazy, funny stuff. If not in a Kakashi Hatake quest, then when? I thought that was the point of this quest? Besides, we don't need to live in Glacier. Let's leave chaos, porn and badass humor in our wake!
Is this actually that kind of quest? I thought the universe was serious but Kakashis perspective was completely out of whack because he's so messed up.
Is this actually that kind of quest? I thought the universe was serious but Kakashis perspective was completely out of whack because he's so messed up.
I mean, the Sharingan bonus is nice, and cheaper for benefit than boosting, but 5% of total CP in upkeep every action really let's me appreciate why canon Kakashi is constantly Chakra exhausted.
Is this actually that kind of quest? I thought the universe was serious but Kakashis perspective was completely out of whack because he's so messed up.
