Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest (STORY ONLY)

[eaglejarl]

Interlude (Omake?): Chosen for the Grave, Part 3​

Part 1, Part 2

'Clean them up,' the Third said. 'Don't hurt them', he said.

Cat and Bull had a somewhat different understanding of words than I did. They grabbed our packs, put all three of us in nasty submission locks, and frogmarched us down the hall to a room with a long table surrounded by chairs. They gently suggested that we take a seat, by which I mean they slammed us down into the chairs. Cat grabbed our packs and vanished for a few minutes. When she came back there was no sign of the packs but she had a trio of towels and some dry clothes which she threw at us.

I picked up one set of the clothes and a towel, then looked at Cat. Then at Bull. Then back at Cat.

"You're not going to give us privacy to change, are you?"

Slow shake of masked head.

"Not even going to turn away, I suppose?"

Slightly amused tilt.

I sighed and stripped to the waist, toweling off and pulling on a dry shirt before dropping trou and swiping the water off my legs. I refused to acknowledge that I was uncomfortable being stared at in my boxers, although for a moment I caught myself wishing that the desires of my heart had been more along the lines of rock-hard abs, two percent body fat, and perfect teeth. I pushed those thoughts away and focused on getting dry and changed without actually losing the last traces of my modesty. I refused to look at Val or Oli who were doing the same as I was.

Five minutes later we were seated again, mostly dry, and clad in black linen pants and shirts. The clothes were all too small for us so our arms and legs stuck out like kids wearing time-to-be hand-me-downs.

"So—" Oli began.

"No talking."

Oli opened his mouth to say something but Bull shifted his weight in an absolutely terrifying manner that made all three of us decide that this was a good time to be thinking about our life choices as opposed to attempting to strike up conversations with masked killers who seemed a bit cranky with us.

One thing that had caught my attention: The dye on our clothes wasn't evenly applied so there were darker and lighter patches. The low technology level of the Chosen for the Grave world and its implications for imperfect dye-fixing was a detail that we'd never written into the quest, which had me a little nervous. What exactly were we dealing with here? Had Phil-the-wish-demon created this world when he sent us here? Had we dreamed it into existence when we started writing the quest? Had we been somehow writing down events that were happening in a pre-existing world? Heinlein had had the concept of 'fictons', parallel worlds that came into existence every time an author wrote a story. Perhaps he was right? If so, how much of our knowledge would be accurate?

My musings were interrupted by the tiny Asian Superman (a.k.a. 'Third Hokage', 'God of Ninja', etc etc etc) walking through the door bearing a large tray piled high with food, a pot of tea, and four cups.

"Good afternoon," he said, smiling in a grandfatherly way that made the whole room seem warm and comfortable. "I apologize for keeping you waiting. I hope Cat and Bull have made you comfortable?"

"Absolutely. / Yep. / Yes." None of us were stupid enough to answer that one honestly.

The charmingly grandfatherly assassin set the tray down and fussed over us for a minute, passing out small plates loaded with noshies and pouring us each a cup of tea. Once all that was done and the four of us were comfortably settled he looked over his shoulder and waved his two glowering gargoyles out of the room.

"Go on," he said. "I'll be fine. No need for you to loom there."

"But, Lord Hokage..." Bull said nervously. "These strangers knew Suijin-Heki Suiton and claim to know the Edo Tensei. Who knows what else they might be capable of?"

"I'll be fine," the Hokage repeated. "Go on, wait outside."

"Yes, Lord Hokage." The two trooped out, shooting a promissory note of a glare at me, Val, and Oli as they went.

"So," the Hokage said, sipping his tea and then looking at us over the rim. "What shall we talk about?"

"Well, first thing is that we can be very useful and you shouldn't kill us," Oli said.

The Hokage looked surprised at that. "Why would you think I was going to kill you?" he asked. "You broke into my office through some sort of space-time technique that neither I nor any of my ninjutsu experts have heard of, and you initiated an unprovoked and degrading attack on my person. Still, you had some very interesting things to say and I'm sure there's more to discuss. We could start with your names and how you got into my office."

"Um," said Oli. I echoed him silently. Oli, Val, and I all exchanged glances.

"I'm Valerian, these are Oli and Earl. If you don't mind, I have a few questions to help us get oriented," Val said cautiously.

The Hokage raised an eyebrow. "Go on."

"How long ago did the Nine-Tails attack, exactly? Twelve years, or thirteen?"

"Thirteen," the Third said. "Why?"

Val nodded thoughtfully to himself. My instincts were screaming at me to not let the silence linger, but I shut up and let him take point.

"Is Shimura Danzō still alive?" Val asked.

The Third looked sad. "He is not. My old friend was killed by chakra beasts. They broke through his fences in the night and killed him in his home."

"I see." Val paused a moment, thinking about his next question. "Has Jiraiya brought in a group of missing-nin by any chance? Their leader is Inoue Mari and the kids are Kurosawa Hazō, Wakahisa Noburi, and Mori Keiko. They're all from Mist."

"Why do you ask?"

We three outworlders exchanged nervous glances.

"This is going to sound strange, sir," I began. "This world isn't the only one that exists. There's an infinite number of them, side by side but separated like pages of a book. They vary, sometimes in small ways and sometimes in large ways. Occasionally information leaks from one world into another and influences the subconscious of the people there. This often happens to authors, painters, and other artists—they start working on a project, not realizing that what they are 'creating' is actually just a subconscious understanding of events in another world." I hesitated. "At least, I think that's how it works. It might just be that there's so many worlds, each one varying very slightly, that they cover every possible permutation of action. If that's the case then anything you write must have happened on some world somewhere. Anyway, the three of us are from another world. For the last two years we've been writing this story called 'Chosen for the Grave' and as far as we can tell it's a very close approximation of your world. Because of that we have a lot of outside-context knowledge, including secrets that could be useful to Leaf."

The Hokage sipped his tea thoughtfully for a moment while he studied me. I was sweating and trying to meet his gaze without flinching. I essayed a smile and then thought that perhaps baring my teeth wasn't a good plan. I closed my lips but the resulting contortion of facial muscles felt less 'reassuringly friendly' and more 'the Joker', so I stopped doing it.

"You are not being truthful," the Hokage said.

"What? I was!"

"No, you were not. You told no untruths but you chose your words too carefully. What are you hiding?"

I winced. This is what I got for speaking up. "Well...everything I said is true about parallel worlds—at least, based on everything I know. And the 'information leakage' and 'million monkeys writing Shakespeare' versions are entirely possible. There is one more possibility, though."

"You believe that you are divine beings who created my world in the process of writing your story. That you created me in the process of writing your story."

"We're definitely not divine beings," Oli said. "And no matter what, we didn't create you. Chosen for the Grave was a fanfiction of someone else's work, a story entitled 'Naruto' about, well, Naruto, and his growing up. If you actually were created by an author it would have been him, Kishimoto. Oh, and I only started being on the author's side a little under a year ago. Before that I was just a reader."

The Hokage folded his hands and studied us. We tried to look non-threatening and non-crazy.

"All right," he said at last. "Suppose for a moment that I believe you. Tell me some of this otherworldly knowledge that you claim to have."

Oli and I both turned immediately to Val, the expert on canon. He looked a bit grumpy about being put on the hot seat, but he took up the challenge gamely enough.

"Like Oli said, the original story is named 'Naruto' and we were writing a derivative of it called 'Chosen for the Grave'. There's a lot of difference between CFG and Naruto, though—the original story was a mess of plot holes and contradictions, so we cleaned up a lot of things when we started writing. What we can tell you depends a lot on whether this world more closely matches the original Naruto story or our CFG story."

"Phil said he was sending us to 'our quest'," Oli pointed out.

Val nodded. "Should be easy enough to tell. If Leaf has something like fifteen hundred ninja then we're in CFG. If it has something like ten or twelve thousand then we're in Naruto."

"Who is 'Phil'?" the Hokage asked.

"Otherworldly demon who sent us here," I said. "We don't know anything about him except that he's big, scaly, and covers himself in constant darkness. Oh, and that he can open portals like the one we stepped through. He literally threw us through one into this little tiny room between worlds. We came through the portal there and into your office."

"Given that the being who sent you here said that it—"

"He," I interrupted, shuddering at the memory and wishing desperately for a gallon of brain bleach. "Very much a 'he'." I suddenly realized whom I had just interrupted and went pale. "Excuse me, sir, that was thoughtless."

"Hm." The Third eyed me for a moment, then decided to let it go. "Very well, let's assume that this...Phil, knew where he was sending you. Tell me something useful."

"What's the date today, sir?" Val said. "It'll help us know where to start. Oh, and was there recently a diplomatic incident in Hot Springs?"

"April 9," the Hokage said patiently. "And yes, there was. What do you know about it?"

Val nodded, thinking. A moment later his eyes went wide in a way that I found very disturbing. "Today's the day they go in the killbox," he said.

"Oh crap / Yurgh," Oli and I grunted.

Val's eyes came back into focus and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table and meeting the Hokage's eyes intently. "May 25 of last year a strike group of ninja—genin, chūnin, and jōnin—was sent out from Mist to launch a military strike in Noodle. Partway there a jōnin named Shikigami"—Val shot me a dirty look and I shrugged apologetically—"pretended to find documents in the commander's tent saying that this was a suicide mission. He used that to convince some of the ninja to defect with him. They went to the Swamp of Death in northwestern Fire and tried to establish the Village Hidden in the Swamp. They were going to get set up and then reach out to you, ask to become a client state of Fire and serve as a buffer between you and the neighboring polities, much like River is a buffer between you and Wind. They were noticed on the way in and tracked by a Leaf patrol. They managed to stay ahead because one of the Mist chūnin had a hawk that he was able to use for long-range scouting.

"They were there for about a month and then Inoue Mari, a red-headed jōnin infiltration specialist, heard that Jiraiya had been sniffing around the area. She defected from Swamp and convinced three genin to go with her—the genin that I think are in your explosive cell right now. Sir, it's really important that you not execute them."

The Hokage's poker face was unsurprisingly perfect. "If I had missing-nin in my cells I cannot see why I should hold my hand. Especially if, as you say, they are missing-nin twice over."

"They're going to invent something that will be enormously to Leaf's advantage, and they'll sell it to you in exchange for citizenship," Val said quickly.

The Hokage snorted. "I have difficulty imagining what could possibly be valuable enough that we would accept traitors within our walls."

"Seals that let you walk on air," I said quickly. "Hazō will invent them. After they leave Swamp they go to Iron, where they meet a man named Kagome Yū. Kagome is paranoid and delusional, but he's also a good sealmaster. The team manages to win his trust and Hazō starts to learn sealing from him. Then—" I broke off, frowning as I tried to remember the sequence of events.

"Jiraiya showed up, disguised as 'Yuijin'," Val reminded me. Fortunately for all of us, Val's player hadn't bought the 'forgetful' disadvantage the way mine had. "He convinced them to go investigate the 'Liberator' and his group, up in northern Iron. The team successfully inserted themselves but then had to run almost immediately because someone recognized Inoue and she accidentally killed him."

"Clumsy, for an infilitration specialist."

I blushed. "That part kinda wrote itself," I admitted. "It made sense with her backstory."

He grunted and gestured for us to go on. He produced a pipe from inside his robe and fussed over it, reducing some of the pressure in the room yet leaving me no doubt that he was still following every word.

"Anyway, while they were there they overheard a reference to the 'Brotherhood of the Sacred Immortal Eight-Headed Serpent'," I said. "They're a group organized by Orochimaru in order to train warriors for the army he's building. Anyway, after they bolted, the team met up with Jiraiya again and briefed him. He recognized the name as being a reference to Orochimaru, although he didn't have enough context to know what they actually are. Regardless, he liked the team's work enough that he offered them open-ended rewards. Hazō learned Earth Clone and Multiple Earth Wall, Noburi got medic-nin training, Inoue got her brains banged out and also had Jiraiya muddy their trail to keep hunter-nin off of them."

The Hokage snorted. "I doubt she needed to use her reward to get Jiraiya into bed."

"So you have seen her!" Oli said.

The Hokage raised an eyebrow. "What makes you say that?"

"Um...well, it sounded like you knew that she was really attractive? How would you have known that if you hadn't met her? Um, sir?"

The Hokage took a deep pull on his pipe, held it for a moment, and then blew a perfect smoke ring. The entire time his eyes held Oli transfixed.

"I have an intelligence network," the Hokage said calmly. "Having pictures and background briefs on every jōnin in the Elemental Nations is something of a priority for us. I am familiar with Inoue Mari."

"Oh."

The Hokage eyed him a moment longer and then turned back to Val. "Continue."

"For her reward, Keiko asked Jiraiya for advice on what she should study in order to become stronger. He gave her a lead towards a summoning scroll down in Tea. The team retrieved it, and—"

The Hokage held up a hand. "'They retrieved it'? Nothing more? Surely it was not just lying around unprotected?"

I hesitated for a moment before deciding that anything less than complete honesty would be a very bad plan. "There's a lost ninja village in the middle-ish of Tea. They call themselves 'The Village Hidden in the Mountain' and they had been guarding the Pangolin Scroll for four hundred years."

"And yet this team of genin and a single jōnin was able to make off with it?"

"It wasn't like that," Oli said. "We—they—spent months there, politicking and all kinds of stuff. It turned out that the village couldn't actually use the scroll because it was locked shut with a seal. Kagome managed to unlock it and Keiko signed it before anyone could stop her."

"In the end, Keiko got the scroll and became the Summoner," Val said. "The team escaped from there and holed up. Keiko had the Pangolin send a message to the Toad Clan to give to Jiraiya, reporting that they had retrieved the scroll and would like to meet again. In the meantime they took what they thought would be an easy mission to make some money and get some practice at stealth and infiltration. That was Hot Springs. They made some bad choices and ended up starting a fight with Jōtarō, a jōnin that they didn't realize worked for Jiraiya. Jōtarō called for backup from an Earth-country jōnin named Komori. The team defended themselves, killing Jōtarō and fleeing from Komori. They were nearly captured by teams of ninja from Hot Springs and Leaf but they managed to escape. Some time later, Jiraiya contacted them through the Pangolins and told them to meet him in Rice at the Three Pines Inn in Amanoshi."

How in the hell Val could remember these details was beyond me. I had recalled 'Three Pines Inn' but I couldn't have produced the name of the town with a gun to my head.

"At the inn," Val continued, oblivious to my musings, "Jiraiya interviewed them. He had Agent Black and Agent White with him. Agent Black was a Yamanaka and Agent White was a Hyūga. We never made up specific names for them, though."

"Convenient," the Hokage observed.

I shrugged. "There's only so much time in the day, sir. I'm sure you know that. When you're writing on a deadline you don't spend time on things you don't have to. We have a lot of different threads that we're juggling—speaking of which, we really need to brief you on the source of chakra beasts and the upcoming climate shift, but let's hold on that for a moment because we're just about caught up.

"Jiraiya told the team that they had just pooched an important operation for him and now they needed to make it right. Jōtarō had been extracting two of Jiraiya's agents, a mother and her son. The son had tattoos on his back that were a ciphered message containing the details of where and when Arikada Sugako could be found. It was Leaf Cipher Violet Eighteen, if that helps, sir." That was one of the random bits of worldbuilding that I'd been amused by: we'd spent a fair amount of time on the Leaf intelligence service so that we could model what information Leaf might plausibly be able to gain about the goings-on that we had planned for the world. We'd created an elaborate series of terminology around what codes and ciphers they had, even going so far as to work out the details of a few of them.

The Hokage's wrinkled face gave nothing away. "And, of course, the team managed to extract the information?"

"No, sir," I said. "About a third of it, just enough to have the date and location but not any of the details about Arikada's guards or so on. Anyway, Jiraiya told them that if they wanted to get back into his good graces they would need to bring Arikada in, dead or alive. They did, but in the process Akane—that's Ishihara Akane, they picked her up in the Liberator village. Akane got wounded, catching a chakra-enhanced worm to the belly. The team ran back to Leaf as fast as possible where she was put in the hospital. The team was allowed to stay in Leaf for a while with Team Asuma acting as their bodyguards and escorts. Hazō and Yamanaka Ino had a bit of a flirtation, Hazō caused a ruckus in the library with your son and let slip some information about the Iron Nerve, and they sold you the secret of skytowers. Am I right so far?"

"You certainly spin an interesting tale," the Hokage said, blowing a smoke ring with an air of perfect calm. "Please, continue."

"Uh, well...like we said before, it depends where we are in the timeline. On April 9, Hazō and Mari went to talk to Jiraiya about how Kabuto was dangerous and manipulative. Jiraiya blew them off and Hazō said 'Akane is a member of our team and we would go pretty damn far to protect her'. Jiraiya called the ANBU and had the whole team thrown in one of the explosive-lined cells under ANBU headquarters. Kagome had two sausage wrappers full of explosive seals in his stomach with strings anchored behind his teeth that he could use to bring the bladders back up. The Hyūga guards spotted that and took them away."

I paused to study him, hoping that I would get some kind of indication of whether or not I was hitting the target. Absolutely nothing came back.

"Sir, Hazō is important," Oli said. "Chosen for the Grave isn't just a book, it's a quest. There are people from all over our world reading it and after each chapter they vote on what he should do. They've been pushing him towards making the Elemental Nations better since day one. They've also been pushing him towards discovering all the science of our world."

"So, the people in your world can actually control him? You are saying that our world is just a fiction after all." The corners of the old man's mouth turned down and the world became grey and joyless.

"No!" Oli yelped. "I mean, maybe? It doesn't have to be. It could just be that all the possibilities play out somewhere, so there's millions of worlds that look just like Chosen for the Grave because everyone happened to do the things that we wrote about, right up until the point where someone did something different. Your world would be one of those and the only question is if it's diverged yet."

"I think the more important question," said the Hokage gravely, "is what will happen to my world now that the three of you are no longer in your own world writing about it."

That shut us all up.

He studied us for a moment, then stood up. "Please, enjoy the food and the tea," he said politely. "I need to go tell Jiraiya not to kill your team."

 

[Velorien]

Interlude: Existential Risks​

The morning had been well-spent, Shikaku decided, since obtaining valuable information from his contact while raising the profile of the Urushi Café which served excellent cake his wife did not need to know about and whose location allowed him to watch the flow of early-morning pedestrian traffic for interesting trends was always satisfying.

Matters were improved further still when he heard Gōketsu Kagome's voice from inside a nearby bookshop.

"Charge this to Jiraya-sti—I mean, the Hokage."

(A foreigner would not personally draw on and a Leaf citizen would use the proper channels to access the funds of the Hokage who was a separate financial entity from Jiraiya to whose resources only the Gōketsu who were both foreign and Leaf and thus capable of confusing the two had access and of whom Gōketsu Kagome was the only one whose voice Shikaku did not recognise.)

It was a valuable opportunity as Shikaku's best agents had drawn a blank on the background of a man adopted as a cousin by Jiraiya despite his erratic behaviour that potentially made him a liability to the clan and about whom Shikaku was curious as well as burdened with non-urgent but necessary paperwork waiting for him in his office.

"Pardon me," he caught Gōketsu as the man was leaving the bookshop with a copy of the latest edition of Jen's Armaments of the Elemental Nations. "May I speak with you?"

"You're Nara Shikaku, aren't you?" Gōketsu's eyes narrowed. "Why? What's your game?"

"I would like to learn more about you, Gōketsu," Shikaku said simply. "My clan and yours are determined to build a strong alliance. I already have a certain limited degree of familiarity with Hazō, Noburi and of course Keiko, and through my wife I am not wholly ignorant about Mari. But you and I have never interacted in any way. Also, I gather you have some very… original theories."

"Hmph," Gōketsu grunted. "She did have this idea of getting me to talk to you so you could go through the things I know and tell me which ones Leaf is ready to admit to. She trusts you enough for that, so I guess I'll do it if it makes her happy. But! There's going to be a price for getting me to share my knowledge."

Shikaku found this reassuring as Gōketsu who could not be a charlatan ready to take payment and flee before his fabrications could be verified was thus demonstrating genuine confidence in his information by assigning material value to it.

"What price is that?"

"Cake," Gōketsu said firmly. "And I'll be the one choosing the shop and the cake, and you'll be the one taking the first bite."

Morning cake twice?

Shikaku didn't know whether to be glad of the excuse or fearful of the consequences if Yoshino ever learned of the event.

-o-​

Shikaku leaned back in his chair and pondered the wild nay outrageous idea of lupchanzen which it would nevertheless display a lack of intellectual sincerity to dismiss without consideration when it came from a man to whom Jiraiya had extended the highest possible trust.

Chakra parasites capable of controlling human hosts were rare as civilian hosts had too little chakra to sustain them and ninja were naturally resistant to interference with brain chakra as reflected by the complexity of genjutsu but they were not non-existent such that civilian villages where a majority of the population showed chakra abnormalities were burned to the ground though the chakra cordyceps which had been rendered extinct at terrible cost had been the last credible large-scale threat.

Natural chakra parasites at most subverted their host's motivations so as to make them use their intelligence to further the parasite's reproductive cycle meaning that a chakra parasite capable of the sophisticated coordinated planning Gōketsu described imposed an additional burden of probability as the potentially highly elaborate application of said intelligence depending on the host's ability and the parasite's specific reproductive requirements would still not extend so far.

But a parasite engineered with a goal other than pure reproduction was another matter given that while Nara had discarded the idea a long time ago due to the high extinction risks of an error in homogeneous mass mind control a fool confident in their ability to eliminate said risks might still attempt it.

A chakra brain parasite with its limited structural complexity could not adequately comprehend, replace and imitate the human host's functioning but only inject its own influence into the existing mental substrate meaning it was impossible for the host to be aware of the infection including the Hyūga who would either have to all be infected and their perceptions filtered or be unable to flag lupchanzen signs as abnormal because everyone they had ever met had been infected.

In either scenario Leaf had no means of lupchanzen detection.

It was necessary to assume that if lupchanzen existed Shikaku himself who had the best hope of inventing countermeasures would be a priority target for infection which would most obviously manifest as a strong inclination to dismiss the idea of their existence which Shikaku indeed felt and was thus rationally compelled to suppress that instinct until he could fully investigate the matter and come to a firm conclusion which if the head of the Nara Clan was unable to reach meant that either they did not exist or he was powerless to stop them and in either case he could only set the matter aside and return to his normal life.

With that in mind Shikaku invited Gōketsu to share his next horrifying belief.

-o-​

"It's basic economics," Gōketsu explained to the head of the Nara Clan. "The villages don't want their rivals to have financial prosperity, because that means more money and more civilians to give birth to ninja, so they secretly send scorch squads to burn civilian settlements to the ground and cull each other's populations. You can't stop small squads from getting through your borders, not all the time, and you can't afford to have ninja stationed everywhere to guard the civilians. After the attack, you can't prove anything because little villages fall to chakra beast attacks all the time, and it's not like you can identify which of your rivals was responsible anyway."

Shikaku nodded thoughtfully. "How many ninja were in your squad? What were their roles, and was this representative of Mist scorch squads? Do you know how many others Mist had?"

"My squad?" Gōketsu stared at him with surprisingly convincing incomprehension. "What are you talking about, Nara?"

Denial on Gōketsu's part would not serve Shikaku's purposes here so while Shikaku disliked breaking down his thought processes as it felt like wading through mud when there was a paved road next to him and his destination was already in sight on this occasion it was impractical to avoid it.

"You yourself have stated that scorch squads are secret to the point that their existence has been successfully concealed from the public for decades. Of necessity, they must contain only the most discreet and fanatically loyal shinobi. Thus, it is impossible for you to have learned of them from a scorch squad member. Nor does the evidence available to me suggest that you were a prominent enough member of Mist's government to have overall top secret clearance.

"Since you describe scorch squads as highly stealthy and targeting solely settlements with no ninja presence, and an ordinary sealmaster would spend a limited amount of time outside the village, it is highly implausible that you would witness them at work by accident. Thus, you must have been a scorch squad member yourself, likely selected for your proficiency at large-scale destruction.

"The psychological trauma of regularly massacring innocents is a highly plausible reason to abandon even a village so determined to hunt down missing-nin. A deep sense of guilt would account for why you abandoned a long-term reclusive lifestyle to join with Hazō, whose ideals centre around aiding and protecting the civilian population. If you fled Mist with knowledge of vital state secrets that made you a priority target, this also would explain your… extreme wariness of others.

"Finally, if your testimony has value as a diplomatic trump card against Mist, this would provide additional incentive for Jiraiya to directly adopt you as his cousin despite your limited acquaintance and somewhat incompatible personalities."

Gōketsu whose secret Shikaku now suspected he'd been the first to deduce gazed at him in an ominous silence that suggested that Shikaku had perhaps been unwise in provoking an emotionally unstable explosives expert.

What would Yoshino do?

"Your secret is safe with me, Gōketsu. I have nothing to gain from undermining your acceptance in Leaf society, nor would I risk interfering with Jiraiya's plans for you. We continue to be allied in the cause of protecting Leaf and foiling its enemies, and should you choose to provide me with the tactical data I've requested, it could be of great use in curtailing the activities of the Mist scorch squads you've described."

Gōketsu rose from his seat. "I have never been in a damn scorch squad, you… you… you… urgh!" Gōketsu threw up his hands in wordless fury and stomped away without giving Shikaku a chance to reply.

Shikaku was left sitting alone pondering how to test for the presence of a parasite that could potentially control his thinking and perception and had evaded every existing means of detection thus far.

Never let it be said that the Gōketsu didn't make his life interesting.

 

[eaglejarl]

Interlude: War Stories​

"What seals have I seen, huh?" Jiraiya asked, leaning back on one elbow and idly poking at the fire with a stick. The poking made a log collapse to one side and roll out from the center of the fire, where it proceeded to throw up a puff of smoke that set Keiko coughing. The girl suppressed a glare at her Hokage and simply put the log back in the fire before shifting her seat slightly.

It was their second night out from Leaf on the way to the Chūnin Exams, and Jiraiya had been in a pensive mood since they stopped. Hazō had decided to take the chance to ask about his adoptive f—his clan leader's great passion. Probably the worst that would happen was that Jiraiya would snap at him to buzz off, but hopefully it would jolt him into a better mood. They would need Jiraiya in top form tomorrow when they arrived at Mist.

Jiraiya's smile was complicated, half sadness and half wry amusement. "Lots of them, and, aside from in the research lab, I mostly see them when things are in the middle of going straight into the crapper."

He stirred the fire a moment longer, then chuckled. The smile shifted, the amusement replaced by nostalgia. "There was this one time, a little before we fought Hanzō and became the Three, when...."

o-o-o-o​

"I look stupid," Orochimaru growled, glaring at Jiraiya. The apprentice medic-nin tugged at the folds of his robes that Jiraiya had just spent five minutes carefully arranging for him.

Jiraiya slapped his hands away. "You look fine," he said. "Handsome, even." It was a lie; Orochimaru had always been sickly and vaguely jaundiced, and he was far too stubborn to use a minor henge to look better. The very expensive clothes and makeup that Jiraiya had bought and applied had been able to move him from 'freakishly pale and vaguely inhuman' to 'rake-thin and shifty-looking' which left Jiraiya feeling quite accomplished indeed.

"I don't see why I have to do this, anyway," Orochimaru complained. "It's a complete waste of time and I have better things to do."

"You lost the bet," Jiraiya said smugly.

"You cheated," his teammate grumbled.

"Nah, you just suck at Rock, Paper, Scissors," Tsunade said from where she was lounging on the bed, reading a medical textbook and occassionally glancing over to watch her teammates get ready. "You've got, like, six different tells. It's embarrassing."

"I do not!"

"Do too."

"Do not!"

"Children," Jiraiya said sternly, "perhaps we could table this until later? Oro, we need to leave now if we don't want to be late."

"I changed my mind," Orochimaru said sulkily. "I'm not going." He plopped down at his desk and ostentatiously turned his back.

"Come on, Oro," Jiraiya chided. "You lost fair and square. No welching."

"No," Orochimaru pouted. "It's stupid."

Jiraiya sighed and checked the waterclock on the mantel. They really did need to get going.

"I'll make you that sleep-inducing seal you wanted," he tempted.

Orochimaru whipped around. "Really?" he asked hopefully. "It would be nice to not have to tie the specimens down while I'm cutting them open for my experiments."

"No problem, buddy," Jiraiya said, patting him on the shoulder with a smile. "You know I'm always here for you."

Orochimaru nodded, the unhappiness slipping away from his long face for just a moment. "I know. Thank you, Jiraiya. You're a good friend."

"Better get moving," Tsunade said from the corner, not looking up from her book. "Not nice to keep a lady waiting."

"Ugh," Orochimaru said, making a moue of distaste. "Girls. What a waste of time."

"Hey!" Jiraiya said. "Okada is a beautiful young woman and you should be glad to have the chance to go out with her. Junko went to a lot of trouble to set the two of you up, so the least you can do is try to look happy. Now come on." He grabbed his teammate's arm and started pulling him towards the door.

Orochimaru glanced back at the pile of papers on his desk, a look of longing on his face. "Can't I just stay here and read?" he asked plaintively, although he grudgingly followed along with his more worldly-wise teammate. "You know I'm no good with people, especially girls. They're scary. And my research conclusively proves that they have cooties."

Jiraiya laughed and shook his head, opening the door and hustling them both out. "They do not," he said. "Now come on. Think of it as infiltration training, if that helps. Someday you might need to talk a woman out of information or something. Practice will help."

"Why would I have to be the one to do that?" Orochimaru grumbled. "You're the smooth one. You've never failed to charm a woman." He pulled free of Jiraiya's grip so that he could clasp both hands under his chin and flutter his eyelashes dramatically. "Ooooh, Jiraiya," he said in a mocking falsetto. "You're so big and strong and handsome. Would you like to know where the secret passage is? You can have my virginity too, if you want!"

Jiraiya thwapped Orochimaru lightly on the back of the head. "Stop that!" he said, smiling despite himself. "You make it sound like I'm some sort of evil lech. Woman like me because I respect them, which is something you'd do well to try. You're"—he hesitated briefly, searching for a diplomatic phrase—"exotic-looking and a decent ninja. All you need to do is be nice to them and listen and I'm sure you'll find a woman who loves you and will complete you."

Orochimaru dropped the mocking pose and shoved his hands in his pockets, kicking dejectedly at the inoffensive floor. "Fine," he said. "I guess you'd know. Come on, let's get this over with."

o-o-o-o​

Jiraiya fell silent, lost in thought, and Hazō waited impatiently for him to continue. "How did the date go?" he finally asked.

"Total disaster," Jiraiya said. "Oro couldn't dance to save his life. Looked like a spastic hopperbeast, and he kept stepping on her toes. She really made an effort though; smiled, chatted, very charming. Unfortunately, just as dinner was being served she asked him what he was interested in before I could wave her off. Oro got all excited and started going on about the joys of cutting things open and poking around in their squishy bits, then asked her if she'd like to come back to his lab and play doctor. She left in a huff and Junko went with her. Wouldn't talk to me for weeks."

"That sucks," Noburi said. "You and Junko were dating?"

"Yeah, that was our third date. Okada had just had a bad breakup and Junko insisted that we double. In retrospect I should have asked someone else—maybe Akihito. He was always smooth." He frowned, then shook his head. "No, he was dead by then. Bunch of blood moths got him, if I recall right." He thought for a moment, then shrugged. "Well, I'm sure I could have found someone." The sadness was back on his face.

"So, sleep-inducing seal," Hazō said desperately. "That sounds cool. Any others that particularly stand out?"

"Yeah, actually. A couple months after we got our team name, we were on this scouting mission up in Lightning...."

o-o-o-o​

Jiraiya leapt over the first stream that they'd passed for three hours, a corner of his mind furious that they didn't have time to stop for water. His throat was parched after all the Grand Fireballs he'd been throwing around during their escape. He dove clear of one blast of lightning, and pushed his companion out of the way of another. "'Just one little peek', you said! 'What could it hurt', you said!"

"Sorry, Jiraiya!" Orochimaru said, spinning and hurling a trio of shuriken at the Lightning border patrol that was chasing them. He really should have stuck with snakes, because his weapons skills had always been pathetic; the first two shuriken missed completely and the leading Cloud ninja batted the third aside with contemptuous ease before firing back with a much better-aimed volley that Orochimaru barely avoided as they fled.

A boulder zipped over their heads from where Tsunade had taken overwatch in the next pile of rocks. Jiraiya didn't look back, trusting in his teammate to keep the pursuers suppressed while he and Orochimaru leapfrogged past her.

"Thunder Net, go!" cried the leader of the patrol. The entire patrol—three squads worth, and what was Lightning doing spending three full squads of chūnin to cover one dinky little outpost in the middle of nowhere which, granted, had turned out to be nothing but a disguise for the very non-dinky seal research lab underneath and wasn't that just peachy?—pulled out kunai and hurled them. They weren't aiming for the team, they were dropping the weapons in a rough circle around the small rockpile that Tsunade was hiding atop and Jiraiya and Orochimaru were just passing. The tags tied to the kunai trailed crackling ropes of lightning behind them, more lightning leaping left and right to link the seals to their neighbors. A rolling crash of ear-shattering thunder hit like one of Tsunade's slaps, knocking Jiraiya and Orochimaru to the ground.

Jiraiya rolled instantly to his feet, nose bleeding and unable to hear. His balance was shot and he staggered as he yanked Orochimaru up. The net was thickening as the kunai descended, more and more threads leaping out to link the main strands together. The kunai were embedded in the ground all around them and the net was drifting slowly lower. The team needed to be out from under the net before it reached them.

Orochimaru grabbed the canteen off his belt and uncorked it, pouring out the contents with a few quick shakes. "Water—" His jutsu was interrupted by a coughing fit from where he'd swallowed dirt when he fell. "Water Element: Cutting Geyser!"

"No!" Jiraiya shouted, reaching out to stop his teammate. He was a moment too slow; a massive column of water leaped from the ground up to the net.

Against a regular net, the Cutting Geyser was perfect; it would slice effortlessly through the strands of the net and throw the fragments aside. Against a lightning technique? Not so much.

Jiraiya grabbed his pale brother-in-arms and leaped, pulling him up into the air a split second before a massive blast of lightning energy charred the ground where they'd been standing. A few brilliant-yellow tendrils forked off to the sides and Tsunade screamed from her perch atop the boulders.

"Thunder Wave, go!" shouted the patrol leader. Still in midair, Jiraiya glanced back over his shoulder and saw the Lightning team with more kunai in hand, fastening seals to the handles with reckless speed.

Internally, he cursed. His team had snuck into the research facility, gotten the general lay of the land, and been on their way out when Orochimaru insisted on having 'just a peek' into one of the labs. Of course the alarm had gone off and guards had come swarming from everywhere. He and the other two had fought their way out through way more ninja than should have been there and been in the middle of a running battle for the three hours since. He was low on chakra and covered in small wounds that were bleeding his strength away. Still, he couldn't let the others die.

He reached deep inside himself, gathering up all his remaining chakra and then forcing himself to find more. And more. And more. His head was buzzing, his skin was burning, and his vision was starting to tunnel down as he skated on the edge of chakra exhaustion. Only the Will of Fire and the desperate need to get the message back to Konoha kept him going; Sensei needed to know about the experiments that Lightning was doing. It could turn the course of the war. He could not allow these puny Lightning punks to stop him, or to hurt his friends!

He cut the handseals with frantic haste, finishing the last one just as he and Orochimaru touched ground at the end of their leap. The Lightning jerks cocked their arms back to throw.

"Water Element: Tidal Wave!" Jiraiya shouted, clenching his fists and pulling with everything he had.

Wisdom is situational. Shooting a jet of water from your feet up into the lightning net that was slowly falling towards you? Not wise. Pulling a fifty-foot high wall of water out of the stream and aiming it directly at yourself and the aforementioned lightning net? Not wise...usually.

The wave moved faster than a ninja could sprint, hitting the Lightning ninja from behind before they knew what was happening. It lifted them on its curl like bits of thistledown in a storm and tossed them through the lightning net. They didn't even have time to scream before they were sliced fine enough to be used for stir fry.

An instant after the ninja were slain the main body of the wave reached the line of kunai in the ground that was the anchor for the net. The tags were soaked and shredded instantly; the net vanished a few scant feet before it would have reached Tsunade atop the hill.

Jiraiya noticed this out of the corner of his eye but couldn't spend the time to think about it. He was too busy dancing across the chaotic surface of the tidal wave, struggling to keep his footing as the water bucked and spun beneath his feet. His chakra was a guttering flame within him; for the first time since the Academy waterwalking was difficult, plus he still held Orochimaru under one arm and the other man's feeble struggles were interfering with Jiraiya's balance. Still, he persevered for the few seconds that were needed.

The wave passed by, leaving Jiraiya standing in a field of mud. His vision was still tunneled and gray around the edges but with sheer willpower he forced himself to run to the rockpile where Tsunade had fallen. He barely remembered to let go of Orochimaru in the process.

"Uuugh," Tsunade groaned, sitting up and rubbing her head. "Sage's cowlick, what hit me?"

"Um—" Orochimaru said nervously.

"Some kind of ranged Lightning jutsu," Jiraiya said quickly. "Those bastards were throwing them everywhere. We barely got clear."

Orochimaru caught Jiraiya's eye. Thank you, he mouthed gratefully. Jiraiya shrugged and gave him a What are friends for? wink. He held a hand out to Tsunade to help her up.

The blonde grabbed his hand and came to her feet, wrapping her buxom self around him in a surprise hug. "Thank you," she said. "You saved us again. I really thought I was going to die there." A shudder went through her at the thought.

Jiraiya chuckled and stroked her back gently, taking care not to become too absorbed in the subtle play of her taut musculature as he did. "It's okay," he murmured. "You're fine. Everything is fine."

She clung to him for a moment longer, her sun-blonde head tucked under his chin like a kitten seeking protection; the pressure of her full breasts on his chest was very distracting and he forced himself not to react. She had made it very clear that advances would be welcome, but he refused. Dating within the team was always a bad idea, regardless of how beautiful and vivacious and buxom and—

He coughed to distact himself and pushed her to arms length, pressing a chaste kiss to her forehead. "You're okay," he said, smiling reassuringly. "Everything's going to be fine. Now, come on. We need to get home."

She nodded, taking a deep breath to center herself. "Right." She looked around for a moment, checking that Orochimaru was fine where he stood a few feet away, his fingers twisting nervously together. "Okay," she said, her voice firming up. "Let's do this. Sensei needs to hear about what those bastards are doing down there before they manage to get it into deployment."

The Legendary Three turned and leaped away, leaving the burned shreds of their enemies far behind as they raced home with news that would change the course of the Second Shinobi World War.

 

[Velorien]

Interlude: Up Close Yet Far Away​

It was Jibura Tobikomi's motto that he'd sell his wares at a price that suited both parties or he'd jump in a chakra beast's maw himself. Today was the first time he'd nearly taken the latter option.

Tobi (as he was to his friends, which included all potential customers, and thus everyone) had only needed a few minutes of market research to conclude that chakra gators made poor customers for his wares. They didn't haggle, their body language was unreadable even to a trader of his skill, and after an unsuccessful round of negotiations he'd been forced to leave one of his product samples wedging open the gator's mouth as he urgently made his escape. Somehow he doubted he'd be getting that one back intact after the trial period was over.

"Head southwest from here, and your journey will meet with a swift end indeed." The old crone's description of the local area had been perfectly clear. But while this landscape, a hideous mockery of the natural order filled with nothing but murderous beasts, did resemble the descriptions of Hidden Leaf he'd gathered on his way through Mist, he couldn't imagine a place like this being the home of the infamous Will of Fire. And right now, with his clothes having soaked up half the water in the swamp as he fled, and the chill beginning to settle into his bones, he'd accept even the Idle Contemplation of Fire as a blessing from on high.

If there was one stroke of luck, it was the shelter built out of fallen trees. Seemingly abandoned long ago, it offered perfect protection from the elements and the eyes of insolvent predators both. Just then, Tobi was so busy counting his lucky stars that he would probably have given one of his precious telescopes away for free to the first person who came along. But of course, there would be no people in this terrible swamp of death. Once, he thought he heard some children's voices in the distance, but he couldn't imagine anyone bringing a child here of their own free will. It was probably another of those siren birds.

Tobi dried out his clothes as best he could and consulted his map. By his best guess, Leaf ought to be due north.
​

-o-
​

Tobi suspected he'd overshot Leaf a little, but at this moment in time he didn't mind so much. Not when he was being given the opportunity to indulge in honeyed nuts, his biggest vice, while watching an afternoon's entertainment at the makeshift arena. He wondered what incredible ninja magic the Liberator must have at his disposal to allow bees to thrive in this severe climate. Maybe he'd ask tomorrow during his audience with the man.

Next to him, a northerner built like a bear, with calloused hands that reminded Tobi of Grandfather's, passionately argued about ironsand purity with a ninja wearing knife bandoleers, while on his other side, a young woman in simple peasant dress was getting a little too enthusiastic about the fight. Her impassioned cheering was cute in a way, but he wished she wouldn't keep unconsciously grabbing his nuts.

The Liberator really had worked miracles to get ninja and common people united behind a single cause. The commoners built, crafted and farmed while the ninja scouted, hunted and defended, but they did so side by side, supporting each other in their assigned roles rather than one existing purely to serve the other. The commoners didn't fear the ninja, and the ninja didn't look down on the commoners, at least nowhere near as much as in the hidden villages he'd been to. If the Liberator's war was done soon, he might even suggest moving Jibura Glassworks here—with ninja-built defences keeping chakra beasts and bandits away, this was the safest settlement outside an actual hidden village, and once those ninja were done fighting, he was sure some of them would see the potential in working with craftsmen and traders to turn their magical powers into money. Money which there was only one obvious way to spend. Truly, the age of the telescope was just around the corner.
​

"Righteous Face Punching Style: Universal Problem-Solving Technique!"

His neighbour thrust her hands up in the air as she cheered, the motion obliterating what remained of Tobi's nuts. In retrospect, he should have seen that coming from a mile off.

-o-
​

He'd overshot Leaf again.

He didn't think he could be blamed this time, though. It could all have been averted if the Liberator had just bought telescopes for his guards, allowing them to spot the incoming ninja force before it was practically on top of them. But no, he'd been too busy dealing with the fallout of that assassination to have time for a travelling merchant. And in the aftermath, Tobi had had no choice but to flee, without even the time to buy a better map.

Still, Kobana wasn't a bad place. The Hydra Foundation hadn't been interested in his wares, but on the other hand they had asked some probing questions about the lens structures, and whether it would be possible to create a focused telescope for better vision of things that were very close by, rather than those far away. They already had a variety of prototypes, they'd told him, but nothing they could test without proper lenses made by a professional.

Unfortunately, while Tobi was perfectly happy to help a prospective customer, he was having a devil of a time finding ninja willing to transport the prototypes home to Wave for Grandfather to look at. At this rate, he might have to give up and move on. Maybe this time he'd reach Leaf without incident.
​

-o-
​

Success! Truly, the stars smiled on the persistent. While he'd missed Leaf once again, Tobi had finally found a prospective customer. The man was rich enough to not only stay at Mizutani Hot Springs but to have his own retinue, and most importantly of all, his unspecified work apparently involved frequent scouting for danger which would be greatly helped by a quality telescope. This time, Tobi would make the sale, or he'd jump in a chakra beast's maw himself.

Tobi had worried, at first, whether he could afford the investment of visiting a fancy hot springs resort to scout out the local market, but the gamble had paid off. And he already had his eye on a few other Mizutani guests who should be able to afford his goods, either as a status symbol or as a professional tool.

Tomorrow, tomorrow his downstairs neighbour would finalise the sale, the first on Tobi's so-far-disastrous trip. From there, success beckoned like sunlight glinting off piles of distant gold. His spirits lifted by hope for the future, Tobi had just stepped out of his room for a spot of stargazing when—
​

-o-
​

Sarubetsu was a more colourful place than Tobi had expected, given its backwater location. No, that wasn't fair. He should be counting his lucky stars that he'd managed to get out of Hot Springs before they closed the borders at all. After all, with his potential clientele fleeing as if the resort was coming down about their ears (which was only partly the case), being trapped in the country would have been a disaster.

Unfortunately, nobody here seemed interested in telescopes, not even at what he considered a reasonable discount price. Locals mistakenly thought they had no use for them, while travellers invested all their money in the local "produce" instead. Wasn't there a single travelling ninja here who wanted a telescope?
​

"You want me to cut your throat, Hinago bitch?!"

A few seats down, a ninja had just leapt up onto a table, knife in hand, apparently ready to start a fight.

Tobi really needed to get out of Sarubetsu.
​

-o-
​

Tobi had to admit that he was apprehensive. After those unfortunate detours through Iron and Snow, he'd finally made it to Leaf, only to learn from his preliminary research that its last telescope salesman (Leaf was rich enough to have its own telescope salesman!) had recently gone out of business. This did not bode well for his sales figures.

However, his research had also revealed to him that there was a new and powerful clan on the rise, one with all the wealth of a legendary hero turned Hokage. And while the existing clans had probably already bought all the telescopes they were going to, the Gōketsu represented untapped potential for his business. Tonight, he would head straight to the compound and offer them his services. For a special first-time-customer price, even.
​

-o-​

It happened the instant Tobi stepped within sight of the Gōketsu Compound.

"Hold it right there, Hyūga stinker!"

The pale, lanky man had appeared out of nowhere with ninja-like speed.

"Think you can just walk up to my home and start spying on my family, do you?" The man stabbed his finger in the direction of the sample telescope Tobi had been carrying in his right hand, a very fine Jibura Super Extender Max Plus 1000 model with a smooth grip and custom brass finish.

"I-I'm not a spy," Tobi stammered in surprise. "I'm just a travelling telescope salesman."

"Oldest excuse in the book," the man growled.

"How could I even be a Hyūga?" Tobi insisted. "They're the least likely clan in the world to need telescopes!"

"Not for getting around privacy seals they're not," the man said. "This is just the kind of underhanded trickery I'd expect from you stinkers." He reached for a pouch at his waist, then tensed as if restraining himself through a great deal of effort.

"If you get off this property within ten seconds, I won't blow you into bits too small even for the Byakugan to locate."

"But I only wanted to—"

"One," the man counted, pulling out a piece of paper with a design on it from the pouch.

"But I don't have Hyūga eyes!"

"If I were a Hyūga, a way of disguising my eyes would be the first thing I'd invent. Four. Five." The man now had five pieces of paper.

Never mind. Right now, Tobi needed some way to take control of the negotiations as a proper trader.

"Six. Seven." The man pulled out more pieces of paper, one by one.

Wait. He'd said "blow you into bits", hadn't he? Tobi suddenly had a theory about what this man's ninja powers were, and what that many pieces of paper would mean.

"Eight."

Discretion was the better part of salesmanship. Lots of discretion. Immediately.

"Thank you for your time, valued customeeeeeer!"
​

-o-
​

Tobi's second attempt went better. Watching the compound from a safe distance using the Jibura Super Extender Max Plus 1000 (in a completely ethical and un-spy-like way), he waited until the uncooperative customer left, and then walked up to the compound gates, this time carefully keeping all his telescopes in his pack.

"E-Excuse me!"

After a few seconds, a redheaded woman appeared at the gate. She looked unarmed, which admittedly said nothing given she was probably a ninja, but still made Tobi relax a little.

"Welcome to the home of the Gōketsu Clan," she said with a warm smile that instantly knocked ten percent off the opening offer. "I am Gōketsu Mari. How can I help you?"

"J-Jibura Tobi, m-ma'am. Would your clan be in n-need of the continent's finest telescopes?"

"Telescopes, you say?" Lady Gōketsu said thoughtfully. "I suppose my… son did mention having a mild interest in telescopes. How much are they?"

Tobi was steadily regaining his self-control. "For you, Lady Gōketsu, a mere three hundred thousand ryō."

That gave her pause.

"That seems like a little too much for a rare toy. But I suppose if it's a present for my family, I might consider fifty thousand."

There was a twinkle in her eye that stirred Tobi's very blood as a proud telescope salesman. He could feel the spirit of the Jibura surge through his veins.

"A toy, my lady? This is the most advanced piece of technology on the continent and beyond. Wars are won or lost by inventions such as these! The telescope is the most powerful of magic wands. It makes chakra eagles flap away in shame. It turns watchtowers into invincible guardians of the peace. It makes spycraft trivial, and mocks even your most perceptive foes. If the telescope had existed when the Sage of Six Paths was alive, he might never have needed to invent ninja! In truth, five hundred thousand would be a fraction of its true worth, and I stand amazed at myself for being prepared to sell it to you for half that price."

Lady Gōketsu considered.

"Is that so? In that case perhaps I shouldn't buy one after all. It would only be an encouragement for him to go out into danger, and there is so much good he can do here in the village."

It had to be a haggling trick. Tobi was convinced of it. But the shift in her body language made him think twice. It was as if she'd lost all interest in him all of a sudden, and he could already see her moving to dismiss him.

"I'm sure your husband, the Hokage, would find it interesting!" he exclaimed. "It has countless applications in warfare. Who knows what ideas he might get from studying it? Can you deny that the possibility of greatly increasing Leaf's military power is worth a pitiful two hundred thousand?"

"My husband's predecessor was the legendary Professor," Lady Gōketsu reminded him. "If these telescopes are so worthy of study, I'm sure there must be stacks of them in the Hokage's Office. Or if there aren't, that would mean the Third Hokage had examined them and found them beneath his interest."

The last telescope salesman in Leaf had gone out of business. Tobi should have seen this coming from a mile off.

"But," she said mercifully, "It might be something for Jiraiya to play around with in his private time. Of course, he doesn't have much of that as Hokage, and it would mean he'd be spending less time with his family… I suppose I might be able to stretch to seventy-five, but only because it would make him happy."

Tobi tried hard not to choke. Her idea of a first counter-offer was to go up by twenty-five thousand?

"Impossible," he shook his head. "My lady, you gravely underestimate the popularity of the telescopes among the elite. Why, if I were to sell it to you for a measly two hundred thousand, I would have all the other clans beating down my door tomorrow morning demanding the same unimaginably low price, and these marvels are in very limited supply. For you, and only for you, would I even consider risking my business like this."

"Oh?" she said curiously, looking right into his eyes. "And how many have you sold so far?"

Tobi couldn't lie to a customer, especially not a lie she was in a position to verify. Especially not when she was the wife of the Hokage, who could have him publically flogged (or worse, stripped of the right to trade on Leaf territory) with the wave of a hand.

"I-I have some very promising prospects lined up," he said, "even if no final agreements have been made."

"Mmm," Lady Gōketsu responded. "It seems to me that if the other clans haven't bought any yet, they must surely have their reasons. I can't have them looking askance at my husband for bucking the trend. No, it would have to be a trivial enough purchase to be unworthy of their consideration. Fifty thousand after all."

Tobi blanched.

"Then again," she went on, "maybe I'm wrong, in which case the Hokage himself buying a telescope for his personal use might stir interest in it among the clans and the general population alike. There are many merchants who would consider fifty thousand ryō a cheap price to pay for that kind of advantage."

Tobi had changed his mind. This woman was a devil. A devil from the darkest depths of the abyss where the starlight could not reach.

"One hundred thousand, and that's me jumping in a chakra beast's maw myself."

"Seventy-five thousand," she countered, "and you may refer to yourself as official supplier to the Hokage."

"Sole supplier."

"If Jiraiya is satisfied with the product and your workshop can meet his future telescope needs at the same price."

Tobi suddenly had terrifying visions of being forced to supply the entire Leaf army for seventy-five thousand ryō apiece, and what Grandfather would do to him when he found out.

"For personal use only," he said quickly.

"Personal and clan use."

The Hokage's clan only numbered six people, right? Grandfather would still kill him, but… sole supplier to the Hokage. There was a lot you could build on a foundation like that. Even if it cost him now, generations down the line his descendants would remember Jibura Tobikomi as the man who'd moved Jibura Glassworks out of total obscurity and into the big leagues.

"Done."

Lady Gōketsu gave him a radiant smile. "Of course," she said, "only Jiraiya can sign a deal which makes you sole supplier to the Hokage, and I'm afraid he left for Mist yesterday morning. So any agreement made here is completely non-binding."

Wait. Non-binding. He'd just spent this entire negotiation…

He looked in her eyes. Saw that twinkle there. The realisation hit him like a chakra alligator to the face.

"You never wanted a telescope at all, did you?"

She gave him a "You've got me" smile.

"We have other financial priorities right now, and I'm not going to spend that kind of money without the intended owner's consent. If you like, you can wait for Jiraiya to return and speak to him then."

"How long?" he asked, feeling the strength drain out of his limbs.

"However long negotiations take. Weeks, I imagine. Or, if you want a quick decision, you could head after him. He's only just set out, so he should still be in Mist by the time you get there."

Weeks of waiting in the same place would not only cost Tobi a great deal of potential profit and clash badly with his wanderlust. It would also, quite simply, drive him insane with the uncertainty. Sole supplier to the Hokage. It wasn't the kind of thing he could let hang in the air.

"Thank you, Lady Gōketsu. I will leave for Hidden Mist straight away."

Mist was northeast of here, he vaguely remembered, on the other side of the Kaizoku Sea. If he hurried, he should make it in plenty of time. And besides, even if he missed the Hokage, how hard could it be to find Leaf again?​

 

[eaglejarl]

Interlude (AU): What If Swamp Worked?​

"I told you this was a bad idea," Kaho hissed, shuddering with the effort of not struggling against her bindings. The chair she was tied to was a square-backed wooden thing, heavy, uncomfortable, and out of place among the comfortably padded seats that surrounded the table in Hokage Tower Conference Room Three.

"It'll be fine," Shikigami said, calm as always. (It should have been reassuring but it was actually just annoying.) "They're not going to do anything to us until they've talked to us and once they talk to us they'll realize we're too useful to waste."

Kaho shuddered, feeling the edges of her concentration waver. Small spaces were bad, confinement was worse. She needed to be able to move! But no, the ropes were too tight around her limbs and the strings that bound her thumbs and fingers together prevented her from making the handseals necessary to henge herself free. Not that that would be a good idea, anyway. There was only one door out, that door led into a hallway, and that hallway lead down some stairs past frighteningly competent guards and straight into the center of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, home to the most deadly ninja in the world. She wouldn't make it ten steps before she was mobbed.

"Why did I go along with this?" she muttered. "Why am I even here?" The fear swam below her, its vague shape masked but not hidden by the still waters at the top of her mind. She tugged at the ropes, struggling to keep her breathing even.

"You're here because I'm your commander and I ordered you to be here," Shikigami said. "It wasn't a request."

"Why me, though?" Kaho asked, hating the hint of whine that she could hear in her own voice. "Why bring me?"

"You're young, cute, and you have a sympathetic history," Shikigami said matter-of-factly. "It's not much, but I'll always take an edge."

Kaho glared at him. "I am not 'cute'!"

He snorted in amusement and, for the first time since they'd been left here, turned his head to look at her.

"You're cute," he said firmly. "Adorable, even. Especially with your hair in two ponytails like that—makes you look about twelve. The Third is an old man and old men want grandkids. He'll know it's a ploy, he won't let it influence him, but it'll still put him in a good mood at the start of the negotiation. Probably amused that we would try such a thing and a little bit of condescending smugness at how transparent it is. It'll let him feel like he's pegged what level I play at."

"Fuck you."

Shikigami snorted again, still amused, and turned back to watch the door.

Kaho glared. "I knew you were being shady when you told me to put it up like this. 'We want to blend in and this is the current fashion in Leaf,' you said. Current fashion my ass."

"And an adorable ass it is," Shikigami said. "As Ueda has told you. Repeatedly. You really need to talk to him about volume control." He paused. "You might want to work on that yourself, actually. I need my sleep."

Kaho's face flushed hotter than her fire jutsu. "Go die," she muttered.

Shikigami chuckled. "There, see? Now you're not scared any more."

She glared at him, eyes narrowed. "You manipulative son of a bitch."

He shrugged as best he could given the strictures of the ropes. "Whatever works."

Kaho grimaced. "Inoue told you to do that, didn't she? That redheaded witch."

Shikigami tried to shrug and aborted the motion as it caused the ropes to constrict around his throat. "She did, yes. I just wish she was still here. She'd be way better at this."

"You seem to be doing fine," said the Third Hokage, pushing the door open and walking through. Four steps behind him followed a trio of ANBU, faceless in their animal masks, but Kaho barely noticed them or the tea-tray-carrying genin behind them. She was too busy staring at the man two steps behind the Hokage: the Mist bingo books had done an excellent job of capturing the white hair, the barrel chest, and the red face paint worn by Jiraiya of the Legendary Three. Intellectually, she knew that the Third was the greater threat—not only was he an insanely powerful ninja in his own right but he could order their deaths with a twitch of his finger. Still, Jiraiya radiated far more menace. He was scowling, glaring at the two of them with eyes that stared straight through her soul, weighed it in the balance, and found it of no more import than a soap bubble.

The Third lowered himself into the cushioned chair across the table from them, moving a little stiffly and sighing once he was settled. He nodded thankfully and smiled at the young genin as she set the tea tray down beside him. The girl bowed and vanished out the door. The Third looked fondly after her and then poured tea into three cups. The tea did not flow smoothly from the pot, as the hand that poured it had a faint tremor that caused a few drops to splash on the saucer instead of into the cup.

"Don't get old," the Third confided to Kaho, shaking his head in rueful amusement as he dabbed up the spill with a linen napkin of such gleaming whiteness and fine weave that it had to have cost a pretty penny. (The message was clear: Leaf is so wealthy that I wipe up spilled tea with napkins good enough for a formal dinner.) "It's no fun, especially on frozen days like today. Makes the bones ache and the cold cuts right through you."

She nodded, eyes wide and head bobbing convulsively until she forced herself to stop. She swallowed, struggling to preserve the still surface of her mind as the fear swam upwards, wide-spread jaws and serrated teeth becoming steadily more visible. Of course, the Hokage noticed.

"Mongoose," the old man said in gentle reproof, "you didn't have to tie them that tight. They came to us for parley in good faith, they shouldn't be treated like prisoners. Remove the bindings, please."

"Sensei," Jiraiya said warningly. "They're traitors. Missing-nin, no matter what airs they put on. Don't trust them."

The Third waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, pish. Relax, Jiraiya. You're here, these three fine strapping ANBU are here, and I daresay that I'm not entirely helpless just yet. They just want to talk. Mongoose, if you please."

The indicated ANBU had paused when Jiraiya spoke but now he moved around the table and knelt to undo Kaho's ropes. The action put his lips right beside her ear, allowing him to whisper so softly that probably no one else heard it: "Give me an excuse, traitor. Please."

Kaho couldn't stop herself from shuddering violently as the ropes came free. She brought her hands in front of her, taking care to move slowly, and massaged her wrists while looking at her commander and hoping he could get them out of here.

"Thank you for seeing us, sir," Shikigami said calmly, seeming not to notice the way the ropes were cutting into his throat as the ANBU tugged them loose a little more forcefully than necessary. "My name is—"

"Shikigami, yes," the Third said, smiling. "You're well known to my intelligence department. There is an entire team of analysts who have lost a great deal of sleep working on ways to counter your paper arts. I must say that I'm glad to meet you across a table instead of across a battlefield."

"Thank you, sir," Shikigami said gravely. "I feel the same."

"So, what did you want to talk about?" As he spoke he slid two of the three cups of tea across the table; Kaho wrapped her hands around hers and let the heat sink in. She didn't dare try to drink from it, though. She needed to keep her arms on the table and her hands tight on the cup or her shaking would be visible; there was no way that she could drink without spilling.

Shikigami touched the cup to his lips politely and then set it down. "Sir, I'm sure you know that we fled from Mist two years ago," he said, showing no sign of anything like the fear that clenched at Kaho's heart. "Mist is—was—our home, but the Mizukage was destroying it. He killed anyone who displeased him, he made bad choices, and he inspired a culture of fear and betrayal that only weakened us no matter what he claimed. Young Saito here"—he nodded towards Kaho—"came home from a mission a day later than expected, only to find that her younger brother had been tortured for an explanation of why she'd gone missing nin."

The Hokage seemed shocked. "I am truly sorry, young lady," he said, patting Kaho's hand reassuringly. "That should never have happened."

"One more good one," Jiraiya mumbled to himself.

"What was that, Jiraiya?" the Hokage asked.

"One more good Mist citizen, sensei," Jiraiya said. "You know, because the only good—"

"Yes, yes," the Hokage said peevishly. "Honestly, Jiraiya. Be polite. This young woman suffered a tragedy, you shouldn't mock her for it."

"Yes, sensei." An entire orchard of lemon trees would not have been so sour.

"As I was saying," Shikigami said, "we were dispatched to conquer Noodle, with a primary aim of gaining farmland to supply Mist, but secondarily of securing a beachhead on the mainland as a staging ground for future warfare. And, of course, demonstrating our power to Fire and the rest of the nations."

"It seems to have failed at its purpose," the Hokage observed, sipping from his teacup.

Shikigami nodded curtly. "Yes, sir. Inoue Mari and I perpetrated a deception on the rest of the strike group. We planted documents in the commander's tent claiming that this was a suicide mission, that everyone here was a suspected traitor or troublemaker. We fled from there to the Swamp of Death, where we established a new village. A significant number of our people were killed or disappeared on the way in or shortly after we arrived, including Mari herself, but we managed to get a base established.

"For the last two years we've been aggressively eliminating chakra beasts throughout the area as well as recruiting every missing-nin we could locate. Our senior medic-nin was killed on the way into the Swamp, but his apprentice survived. Mari and I had brought a load of medical texts and Hotaru was able to continue studying and improving, as well as training an apprentice of his own. Once we had two competent medics I began sending one out to minister to the local civilian population."

He paused and studied the old man across the table from him for a moment. "Sir, I know that you have an excellent intelligence service. I would estimate that we've pulled something like ten or fifteen percent of all the missing nin in the Elemental Nations into Hidden Swamp, as well as killing thousands of dangerous chakra animals and curing dozens of people. I'm sure that Leaf has noticed the drop in crime and the increase in civilian survival and economic prosperity throughout the region around Swamp."

The Hokage leaned back in his chair and sipped at his tea. "It's possible," he allowed. "There might have been a couple of reports crossing my desk on the subject." His eyes twinkled. "Also, I'm amused at the way you're attempting to establish legitimacy by referring to your group as a ninja village—'Hidden Swamp' instead of merely 'the swamp'. Well done on framing the discussion so smoothly."

Shikigami nodded stiffly. "Thank you, sir. As I said, we've been a positive force on your border and we're prepared to continue being such. The area around us is better of for our presence and we're ideally situated to be a buffer between you, Grass, and Waterfall."

"Grass is our ally and Waterfall is a friendly neutral. Why would we need a buffer?"

"Alliances among ninja villages are fragile things," Shikigami said calmly. "They don't last forever."

"Well, that's a valid point, I suppose." The Hokage fussed with the teapot, pouring himself another cup and offering more to the Swamp ninja, despite the fact that both their cups were still brimming.

"Your point about alliances is well-taken," the Hokage said. "Still, I'm not clear on what exactly you're asking for?"

"Client-state status, sir," Shikigami said. "Cede us the land in the immediate area—it's bad land and no value to you except insofar as it defines the border with Grass and Waterfalls. I very much doubt that Leaf ninja enjoy patrolling around there and if you give it to us then it becomes our problem. We'll keep it free of chakra beasts and enemy ninja incursions. We'll care for the local population such that they can be more productive. With us watching over them full-time they'll be able to pay more taxes than they do now. We'll collect the taxes locally and pay you twenty five percent more than the average you've received over the last twenty years."

The Third's eyebrow went up. "You think that you can care for those people better than we can?" he asked mildly.

Kaho swallowed nervously.

"With respect, sir, the Land of Fire is very large. Leaf is the largest and strongest of the ninja villages but even you lack the manpower to give every part of the country 24/7 protection. At this point we have enough people that we can put at least a genin in every hamlet across the region we're asking for, every day, and rotate them so that they stay fresh.

"Likewise, even with the Hyūga and their Byakugan, it's difficult to find new children with the potential to become ninja, simply because it requires covering so much ground. We have two medics and twelve ninja who are capable, through various methods, of detecting ninja-capable chakra systems in children. If you give us the land we're asking for then we can send you one new candidate per year."

"And keep the best for yourselves, of course," Jiraiya sneered. "Those are our people. Why shouldn't we simply screen them ourselves and get all the candidates?"

"It's hard to determine which of a group of ninja-possibles will be 'best'," Shikigami said to Jiraiya. "Our preliminary review of the area shows two children who are definitely candidates and three infants who might possibly be such if their chakra systems continue to develop." He shrugged. "Even if you could find all of them I doubt that it would be worth the effort needed. As an example, one of those infants lives in a hut well back in the woods—very difficult to find unless you spend a lot of time combing the area. The place is surrounded by stinkweed and there are multiple colonies of insect-eating birds nearby...almost as though they were specifically intending to make themselves difficult for Aburame and Inuzuka to find. The Hyūga could probably do it, of course, but how many of them are there and how much will they appreciate being asked to traipse through hundreds of square miles of swampland?

"The fact is that Hidden Swamp has more sandals on the ground there than any other village does, and it has allowed us to become much more familiar with the area. There's a surprising number of people living there, and we've managed to establish positive relations with many of them. Having us as a client state that administers the area for you would give you increased tax income, a more stable border, and a small but steady influx of ninja candidates. We will continue pulling missing nin off the market, meaning lower threat profiles for Leaf ninja and less crime across your territory. All we're asking in return is the right to manage our own internal affairs as long as they don't conflict with your interests. That, and a strip of land that you haven't been using anyway."

The Hokage's genial expression fell away, his face going still and deep. Kaho's breath caught in her throat as he steepled his fingers and studied the two of them. Everyone else in the room seemed to suddenly shrink to the size of children, the central fact of the Hokage's existence outweighing the reality of everything around him. She felt herself becoming as thin as Shikigami's paper, fragile as spun glass that could only pray it would not be dashed against the granite certainty of the Being that had politely disguised himself as a kindly old man.

The silence dragged on and on as Kaho struggled to breathe. Finally, the Hokage spoke.

"How much land?"

 

[eaglejarl]

Doing something a little different today. This chapter was written by both myself (@eaglejarl) and @Velorien in collaboration. Enjoy!

---

Campfire Stories, Sealmaster Style​

It should have been a dark and stormy night. The clouds should have been crackling with ominous thunder. The darkness should have been pressing in like an animate, oppressive force. The sounds of animals moving around should have been taking on an eerie, sinister edge, and Hazō should have been feeling an inexplicable desire to speak in no more than a hushed whisper lest he draw the attention of something terrible.

"Who wants another squirrel on a stick?" asked Jiraiya.

"Ooh, ooh, me!" Noburi said, doing the next best thing to snatching the stick from Jiraiya's hand before dunking it in the Akimichi teriyaki sauce that Kagome had grumpily authorized eating, solely because he'd provided the ingredients and then watched the cooks prepare it. (The Akimichi had started off amused and happy to satisfy the request of their Hokage. They hadn't ended that way.)

It was that kind of night and Noburi was hogging the squirrels. This was not what Hazō had signed up for. (Not that he'd signed up for anything, as that would imply Mari-sensei giving any of them a choice.)

Keiko sighed. "Far be it from me to reject the joy of partaking in incinerated rodent, but I do believe we had a purpose in coming here."

"Yes!" Hazō exclaimed. "Mari-sensei, you promised us, and I quote, 'an unforgettable family bonding experience through shared horror over what half of us do with our spare time'." With a move memorised to perfection over the course of the evening, he grabbed the next squirrel before Noburi could react. "And not that the things this teriyaki sauce is doing to my tongue aren't horrifying, but I did assume you were referring to the tales of sealing failures Jiraiya's been hinting at all this time."

"Sealing failures, huh?" Jiraiya said thoughtfully. "Seems a little dark. It's a nice night, can't we just enjoy each other's company?"

"Hmph," Kagome said. "Like you've got any stories about sealing failures, Mr. 'Oh-I'm-the-Greatest-Sealmaster-Ever-and-So-I-Don't-Need-Precautions'."

"Kagome," Jiraiya said patiently. "How do you think I became the world's greatest sealmaster? Everyone starts off ignorant, I just survived long enough and learned enough to be the best." He preened a bit. "Of course, being incredibly gifted helped a bit."

"Hmph."

Jiraiya rolled his eyes. "Fine," he said, "let me tell you about the kind of people I worked with back when I was studying in Leaf's sealcrafting facilities—the world's best, mind you, staffed with the elite of the elite. Our janitors knew more about sealcrafting than some of the experts in the other villages." Kagome gave another "hmph", but Jiraiya ignored him.

"The elite of the elite," he repeated. "And if you wanted to live long enough to get promoted, you had to pay attention to every tiniest detail of what they told you. For example..."

Jiraiya shifted into a more comfortable sitting position.

"When I was a new recruit still getting my feet wet," he began, "I was taken on the standard tour of the Hall of Candles. They showed us each sealmaster's candle and the inscription underneath it—their name, their date of death, what they'd done wrong and what happened to them as a result. Your typical apprentice couldn't sleep for a week straight after that, longer if they had a good imagination. Put you in the right frame of mind.

"But there was one candle which only had a name: Ishimura Junior. He was in the Hall of Candles, but he wasn't dead.

"I recognised the name, of course—the Ishimura Junior reports are required reading when you're inducted, because the man has a ton to say about protective barriers and layered defences. So I asked.

"What they said is this: Nobody knows when Ishimura Junior died. Nobody knows if Ishimura Junior died. Nobody knows if he ever lived. The people who would have been his colleagues don't remember ever meeting him. His signature on those dozen reports is all there is.

"And you know how the last of his reports ends? 'My next safety feature should make sure nobody ever suffers the same fate as', and the rest of the line is blank."

Hazō shuddered. "Did they ever figure out what the safety feature was supposed to be?"

"No idea," Jiraiya said. "We don't even know what it was meant to prevent, not really, or how common that thing is. Think about it: everyone knows about Ishimura Junior because, if he ever existed, he was really good at what he did, and his reports get used in training every year. How many other reports might there be filed away that nobody ever sees? How many of them have signatures nobody would recognise? How many don't?

"This is the thing some sealmasters"—Jiraiya eyed Kagome briefly but meaningfully—"can't get their heads around. The worst sealing failures aren't the ones where people get flayed alive and then their skin put back on inside out. It's the ones where you don't know what happened—or how to stop it happening again."

"Are you implying that specific types of sealing failure are preventable?" Keiko frowned.

Jiraiya shook his head. "Not the failures. But sometimes, knowing exactly what happened during a sealing failure is the only way to save yourself from its consequences.

"There was this one time when I was on a diplomatic mission to Hidden Rock for Sensei. They wanted to show how powerful they were and what good allies they could be, so they took me through their sealing labs...."

o-o-o-o​

The door swung open on well-oiled hinges. Somehow, Jiraiya could almost hear the creeeeeeak that should have been there.

"And this is Room 112," said Imai Kenzō proudly.

Jiraiya looked inside without moving any closer to the door. The room was tiny, barely the size of a large closet, and completely empty except for a chair that faced the door, a desk in front of the chair, and a trio of inkstones placed haphazardly across the desk's surface.

"It's empty...?"

"Yes," Imai said, nodding sagely. "I check at least once a fortnight, more often after we lose someone."

Jiraiya waited, but the Hidden Rock sealmaster just stood there. "Why?" the Sannin finally asked, knowing full well that it was a straight line.

"To make sure there's always someone alive who remembers that Room 112 is empty." He smiled. "Preferably someone who doesn't live here in Hidden Rock."

o-o-o-o​

"Pfffft!" Kagome pffted. "That's the best you've got? Let me tell you what a real sealing failure looks like....

o-o-o-o​

The other students laughed at Kagome when he came to class in a smock, balaclava, and gloves that overlapped his long sleeves. The first time a proctor, Sugawara Dan, exploded and soaked them all in blood and brain matter they glared at his smug expression but continued to wear their normal attire. The second time it happened everyone took turns quietly asking him for recommendations on which fabrics were the most bloodproof.

The third proctor, Murata Chōei, didn't explode. He shredded. Half of his body mass vanished...not half of his body, half of his mass. Strips of flesh and bone from random locations simply winked out of existence, leaving him a screaming, oozing mass of agony on the floor.

Murata didn't die. The blood flow stopped in less than a minute as some of the strips reappeared. They didn't reappear in exactly the same places, leaving small cracks in the skin and upthrust ridges where the flesh now overlapped. Over the course of a week the cracks filled in with teeth and eyes. No one seemed to notice and they certainly didn't believe Kagome when he pointed it out.

o-o-o-o​

"Ouch," Jiraiya said. "Yeah, I always hated the Type 7-G incidents. Of course, sometimes you get something simpler, like that one time that Noguchi's digestive system got reversed. A liquid diet proved to be best after that, since it tasted least bad on the way out. Poor guy lived six months like that."

"Yeah, well, we had someone live for a year after being turned inside out," Kagome said immediately. "It was gross. You could see his brain beating, and he left bloody footprints everywhere."

Noburi frowned. "Brains don't beat, Kagome," he said. "Hearts beat."

"Were you there, Mr.-I'm-So-Stinking-Clever? No, you weren't, so you just shut up."

Noburi shrugged and chewed thoughtfully on his squirrel. "That would actually be really cool," he said after a moment. "Do you remember what the blood system looked like? Dr. Yakushi has been speculating on whether it's a set of loops or a static pool."

Kagome glared at him and masticated a defenseless squirrel-kebab to death.

"Tsunade believes it's a single closed loop," Jiraiya offered. "She's generally right about that sort of thing since, y'know, world's best medic-nin." He smiled. "Just like I'm the best sealmaster. Because Legendary Three."

"What about Orochimaru, Jiraiya?" Mari-sensei asked. "What was he best at? You mentioned once that he liked to cut things open and that you were making seals for him—did anything ever come of that?"

Jiraiya shuddered. "Nope. Nothing."

She raised an eyebrow. "Nothing?"

"Nothing."

"And they say I'm a bad liar," Kagome grumbled. "Reminds me of this one time...."

o-o-o-o​

"You are an idiot who should not be allowed near an inkbrush, much less a testing lab," Kubo said. "Also, I'm very embarrassed about saying that and I hope I don't get in trouble for it. Secondarily, you are smoking hot and I want you to drag me to bed by my hair so that you can tie me down and make me lick every inch of your body."

"What?!" Otsuka shrieked, leaping to her feet.

Kagome started shoveling his food down so he could get away before things really went south. These conversations never went well, since people didn't like it when you were honest with them. Worse, Kubo's conversations frequently devolved into violence that involved collateral damage to everyone else in the lunchroom.

"Now I'm really embarrassed," Kubo said, blushing furiously. "I hate saying those things to you, but I really don't want the broccoli getting into my eye."

It wasn't actually broccoli, of course, but the growths did look remarkably broccoli-esque. New ones sprouted every time Kubo kept a thought bottled up, and they seemed to be evolving. The one on his nose had grown claws last week and was ever-so-slowly growing towards his left eye, the claws clacking furiously as it grew. Worse, the clacking was starting to sound like words.

o-o-o-o​

"Semi-sapient growths on the face, huh?" Jiraiya said. "Yeah, that's bad. Could be worse, though.

"I remember when Murabe, one of the other guys in my division, called me over to help him set up for a trial. Luckily for me, I was late because I got stuck in an argument between Yuri and Mikako over who got to jump my bones—this was while I was still young and stupid, you understand, and didn't realise it was a false dilemma. By the time I got to Murabe, it was all over.

"The best way to describe what happened to Murabe was... 'out of phase'. He wasn't all there—not mentally, but physically. You could sort of see through him if you squinted hard enough, and while he was all right while he was concentrating, the second he got distracted he started moving through things. Trouble was, things started moving through him too. He got real sick real fast, and it took us time to figure out that this was because the air was getting past his skin and rubbing against his insides. He wasn't completely out of phase, you see, just a bit. He got prescribed complete bed rest, because he was mostly fine as long as he didn't move at all and was indoors where there was no wind.

"But what happened to him was nothing. Here's the really weird thing. He hadn't been testing a seal.

"Murabe was a smart guy, one of the best I'd ever worked with, and he knew better than to forge ahead with a risky experiment just because his helper wasn't there. He was still in the process of double-checking his calculations when whatever happened... happened.

"Now the idea of getting hit by somebody else's sealing failure out of nowhere is scary enough. But it gets worse. Murabe was an early riser, and he was the first to set up for an experiment that day. There was nothing in the facility that could have triggered at that time. In other words, he got messed up by a sealing failure when no seal had failed.

"And then it's a month later. To the day, actually. I remember because Yuri made a big deal out of the anniversary. Mensiversary. Whatever. There I am, in the testing area where Murabe had his accident, minding my own business with a Banshee Slayer prototype, when suddenly the man himself staggers in. Bear in mind, he's not suicidal. He's been starting to fade back into phase, meaning there's hope for a complete recovery—as long as he doesn't do what he's doing right now.

He looks terrible. He's panting, and his eyes are bloodshot. You can sort of see inside him, only instead of organs or what have you, it's all red with blood, like he was tearing himself apart against the air in order to get here.

"He walks up to me, grunting with every step. 'Jiraiya,' he says, 'where's my prototype sonic catalyser seal?"

"I tell him I'm damned if I know. It's the early hours of the morning and I'm barely awake. I'm not going to remember where his stuff from a month ago got stowed after the medic-nin were done with him.

"He looks me in the eye, and he's got the look of a desperate man. 'Jiraiya, if you don't get that seal here in one hour, I think the world will end.' And then he falls to his knees, struggling to breathe.

"Well, what was I going to do? Murabe wasn't one for drama, and he was wrangling seals while I was still beating up bullies at the Academy. I run for the storerooms like all our lives depend on it.

"Fifteen minutes later, I get back with the seal, and he's in bad shape. Coming out here cost him big-time. He's leaning against the wall like it's the only thing keeping him up, and I wouldn't be surprised if he keeled over any minute. So I hand him the seal that he never got to infuse the first time round. 'What's the deal, Murabe?' I finally ask.

"'I have to make sure this seal fails,' Murabe wheezes. 'By the Sage of Six Paths and all his disciples, it has to fail.'

"And before I can lift a hand to stop him, he infuses the seal. I dive for cover—

"And nothing happens, except he collapses to the ground again. It didn't take a medic-nin to tell that the stress had been too much for him. He'd given his life to fail an infusion, but the failure didn't do anything."

"Bird poop!" Kagome said. "No such thing as a sealing failure that doesn't eat your face in horrible, horrible ways. Or make broccoli grow out of it."

"I was confused too. At first, I thought he must have infused the seal successfully after all. Which is crazy. How do you fail to fail an infusion? And then I realised... it had done something after all. It just hadn't done it now."

Silence fell as the family digested that.

"I had no idea sealing failures were so dangerous," Mari-sensei said. "I've watched these two for a year now. I've seen explosions, portals that create blade monsters, chakra constructs that look like talking porcupines, and all kinds of crazy stuff. I've never seen the kinds of things you're talking about."

Jiraiya shrugged and took a pull on the canteen of sake at his feet. "From what I can tell, Hazō has mostly been working on variations of storage seals, which are the second best-understood seal in existence. They're an extremely stable design that's very hard to get wrong, which is why they get taught to novices.

"Kagome," he said, turning to his colleague, "I may not agree that all of your precautions are necessary, but the fact is that you're good at what you do. Adding a chakra adhesion trigger to the air domes was a clever bit of jiggery-pokery, and the implosion seals are a cool variant on storage."

He looked back to Mari-sensei. "Point is, Hazō has been dealing with stuff that's hard to screw up, so it's not surprising that most of the screw-ups have been fairly tame. Once you start getting into more esoteric research that isn't the case anymore."

He paused, staring meditatively into the fire and sipping on his canteen. When he spoke again his voice was quiet, his thoughts clearly far away.

"There were two prodigy twins at one of our facilities: Ikaruga Yūji and Ikaruga Yūhei. They always worked together. Co-authored all their papers, collaborated on every project. Rumour had it that they were even dating a pair of sisters. And one day, while doing some extremely esoteric and very classified research, they got hit by the same sealing failure.

"At first it seemed like nothing was wrong. For a second, they just stood there. But then Yūhei clutched his head as if it was about to burst apart, screamed to the heavens and collapsed on the spot. And Yūji just gave this creepy little smile and said, 'Well, that's never happened before'.

"Yūhei didn't wake up after that. He was in a coma. They left him in the sealmasters' dormitory to keep an eye on him in case there were more effects, and made sure Yūji stuck around until he got a clean bill of health from the medic-nin. Yūji seemed fine, though. He walked around, talked to people, studied sealcrafting notes and reports like any normal sealmaster—only he never stopped wearing that creepy little smile.

"All normal, until the day he deliberately triggered a sealing failure. By the time they were done with the evacuation, he'd disappeared, and nobody ever saw him again. Everyone assumed he'd decided to turn missing-nin, though there was no clue why.

"Two days later, Yūhei woke up. His colleagues were all relieved to find him in good health... until he opened his mouth. Nothing he said made sense, and eventually everyone gave up on listening to him and just treated him as another traumatized sealmaster."

"What kind of things did he say?" Hazō asked.

"Oh, a whole bunch of crazy stuff. I can still remember a little of it.

'There isn't enough blood in the children.'

'It's so cold here, inside the others.'

'They will obey. Once they've looked into the sun, they will obey.'

'Too many hands. Why are there always too many hands?'

'I have run out of right angles. I must start again.'

"A week later, the news came in that the hunter-nin had tracked down Ikaruga Yūji. They wouldn't talk about how they found him or what they'd seen, but they reported that when they got there he'd already taken his own life. The same day, Yūhei spontaneously snapped out of his madness, and as far as anyone could tell it had no lasting effects... except that every now and again, people would see him smiling this creepy little smile."

 

[eaglejarl]

Interlude (Omake?): Chosen For the Grave, Part 4​

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

The door snicked quietly closed behind the God of Shinobi.

Seconds later it opened again so that Bull and Cat, the deadly ANBU killers in animal masks, could slip inside and resume their faceless glowering at us from positions against the wall.

I had been intending to turn to Oli and Val so that we could get some planning done now that we had a moment alone, but instead I waited quietly for Hiruzen's return. Beside me Val was lost in his own thoughts and Oli's fingers were very subtly twitching in ways that suggested he was lost in Reality! Warping! Spreadsheet! Wooooorld!!!

Yes, my inner monologue did come in SUUUUPERHERO VOICE!!! with multiple exclamation points and oh god I was analyzing my own inner monologue which was likely to make my brain explode from the meta. Quick, find a distraction!

I took some deep breaths to slow down the off-the-rails racing of my thoughts and forced myself to wait patiently for Hiruzen's—no, for Sarutobi's—no, for Lord Hokage's return. Very important to be very respectful. Very, very respectful. Offending any of the superpowered assassins would be, in the immortal words of Tony Stark, 'not a great plan.'

God, what was taking so long?

Hey, seals! There's a good thing I could be thinking about. Useful subject, deep and wide so that I could chew on it for a long time, all sorts of connections to grand cosmic power and sufficient value that I shouldn't be killed. I do wish they had named them something else, though...every time I worked on my seal interpreter I had to start by chasing away mental images of a woman translating between me and a trio of aquatic mammals. For some reason she always used ASL to talk to the seals, which seemed very strange given the whole flippers thing. Eh, my brain was weird, film at eleven.

Gah, this was not working. I couldn't get my thoughts to sit still even for a second.

"So, how about that local sports team?" I essayed weakly, attempting a smile at Bull.

"No talking."

I was self-aware enough not to say 'Right, sorry, shutting up now.' And more than self-aware enough not to follow it up with 'I know to stop talking when I'm told to stop talking, yessirree. People who don't stop talking when you tell them to stop talking are the worst, but I'm not one of those types, oh no! I stop talking when I'm told to stop talking! I always say—'

I pulled my train of thought onto a siding because I was suddenly having visions of a Viking longboat full of Warner Brothers lawyers crashing through the wall Kool-Aid style with a mighty "Avast, ya scurvy dog! Ye've been serrrrrrrrved!" while waving an injunction against any further creation of imagery or dialogue derived from, related to, inspired by, or in any other way based upon the hilarity of my youth.

I pressed my palms together, fingers spread, and started doing a calming exercise: Tap fingers in order, ensuring that all fingers were firmly together aside from the pair that were being tapped. Thumb was one, pinky was five; tap one, two, three, four, five. Easy. Tap five, four, three, two, one. On a roll. One, three, five, two, four. Oops, ring fingers came apart slightly when I tapped pinkies. Start over. One, two, three, four—damnit, I really was jittery if I couldn't even make it through one to five. Okay, breathe. Breeeaaathhheee. Start over. One, two, three, four, five. Five, four, three, two, one. One, three, five, two, four. Four, two, five, three—damnit! Start over. One, two, three....

I had made it through the sequence to 'one, five, two, four, three' when Lord Hokage walked back in.

He paused at the table to study us, then produced a scroll from within his robe and unsealed a small canvas bundle. Without a word he took his seat opposite us, lacing his hands on the table as he studied us for seconds that were only very slightly longer and less comfortable than the ones back in 2010 when my then-sweetheart told me that we needed to talk.

"These missing-nin from Mist," the Hokage finally said, breaking the silence with a face so inscrutable that my liberal subconscious was scolding me for inadvertent racial stereotyping. "You said that they were important?"

"Yes," Oli said. "Hazō came up with the idea for a seal that lets any ninja walk on air by using chakra adhesion to activate and deactivate a small upside-down Air Dome. Well, Hazō thought of it and Kagome created it. Hazō also figured out how to turn the Force Wall seal into a flying machine by putting a screw against the Wall—see, the Wall doesn't transmit force to the seals that generate it, because if it did then punching the Wall should rip the seals, but since it doesn't you end up with unbalanced forces and that means an acceleration, so—"

"They never actually tested that one," I pointed out. "There was no way we were going to let that work. We were going to say that the forces were still there, it's just that the system was part of a larger spacetime which—"

"Actually," Val interrupted, "I believe we were going to say 'It didn't work and you don't know why'. Because Hazō wouldn't have known the answer just by seeing the failure, and because if we'd actually given them an explanation they would have just broken it in a new way."

"Well, yes, but—"



"You know these ideas, since you created them." The Hokage's words weren't a question but it was very clear that there was only one right answer even so.

"We wrote them, yes, but we didn't actually create them," Val said carefully. "Our players are the ones who actually thought them up."

"So you stole their plans and implemented them for your own?"

I was getting a very great uncomfortableness about the direction the conversation was going.

"No, no, no!" Oli said quickly, waving his hands. "No stealing. We were working with the players. They thought things up and then we showed them what the results were. They used that information to make better predictions."

"But you know the details, correct?" the Hokage demanded. "How the seal worked?"

The three of us exchanged worried looks. The other two threw me under the bus with a pair of 'well, go on then' head tilts.

"Sir, I'd like to answer this one carefully, so that there's no misunderstanding," I said. "When we were writing the quest it was just a story. We didn't come up with an actual working model of seals or seal theory. We had some simple dice-rolling mechanics behind the scenes, but in general we would simply show the thing working and occasionally have a bit of technobabble to suggest that there was a set of rules behind it. You know, like 'sealing failures cascade in eleven dimensions, or thirteen for three or four nodes'—"

"That's correct," the Hokage interrupted. "I thought you said you didn't actually know anything about seal theory?"

"It was an example, sir," I said. "Just a bit of made-up jargon that sounded impressive but didn't mean anything in particular. Now, however...yes, now I actually do know something about seals. When Phil sent us here he imprinted a lot of knowledge about seals and seal theory into my head, along with two example seals—storage and explosive—and, more importantly, eight components of seals which I can put together in different ways—"

The Hokage frowned and I instantly shut up. He leaned back in his chair, studying me intently while he produced a long-stemmed pipe from inside his robe. He stuck it in his mouth and set it alight with something that sure as hell sounded like 'Grand Fireball no Jutsu' except that it produced a sphere of flame no larger than my pinky nail.

"I have a certain level of familiarity with seal theory," he said finally. "There is no such thing as a seal component. A thing is a seal or it is not a seal. Seals are indivisible; you cannot take away a brushstroke or add a brushstroke and expect the seal to continuing working. Neither can you simply draw two seals on top of one another and get anything other than disaster."

I thought about that for a moment, unsure of how to respond. "Sir, I promise that I can do what I say I can," I said at last. "Just as a proof by example, the Lesser Barrier Formation is one seal that exists in two parts. Anyone walking between the two parts while the seal is active will trigger it, causing it to trigger up to two other seals. Right?"

"Hm...yes, I suppose. You are suggesting that your 'components' are in fact complete yet simplistic metaseals, much like the Formation."

"Yes, sir."

"Interesting theory. Continue."

"Right. Uh...where was I?"

"Tell him about the skywalkers," Oli suggested. "That's the important point right now, isn't it?"

"Wouldn't it be better to wait until Hazō invents it?" I asked. "The less we mess with the timeline the more valuable our future knowledge will be."

"Unfortunately, young Kurosawa will not be inventing anything," the Hokage said. "I was too late. Jiraiya had already executed the entire team." He paused. "If it helps, it was quick. He simply burned them to death with a single Demonic Inferno jutsu." A few quick tugs untied the bundle that he had earlier placed on the table and allowed it to fall open and reveal five ash-covered skulls.

He studied our horrified expressions for a moment.

"Hmmmm," he said, tapping the dottle out of his pipe and refilling it. "It seems that didn't help."

 

[Velorien]

Interlude (AU): Inoue Mari and the Quest for Redemption ​

Kagome's eyes were bloodshot. His new beard was ragged and unkempt. He had the pale face of a man to whom "sun" was an empty syllable, and he was stooped as if the weight of a stone tomb was pressing down on his shoulders. He was looking better than he had in weeks.

Mari felt the way Kagome looked. She was a failure as a mother and as an instructor. She'd let her children go unprepared to the Chūnin Exams, and she'd been stupidly overconfident about their performance. The reports had described them as weak, inexplicably weaker than she remembered them, and then they had described them as dead.

Relations had quickly fallen apart, between her and Jiraiya, between Jiraiya and Kagome, and especially between Leaf and Mist. As far as Jiraiya was concerned, Mist had murdered his children. As far as Mist's sharks were concerned, the Hokage's clan had turned out to be hubristic weaklings, and Leaf had shamed itself before the eyes of the entire shinobi world. The declaration of war would come any day now, and she didn't know how many countries Mist's superior exam performance would swing to its side.

Today was Mari's first day sober. The oblivion of lupchanzen piss still beckoned, but after Kagome had lost his meagre trust in Jiraiya and the rest of Leaf, there was nobody else he could ask for help. He had a desperate case of Saviour Syndrome, she knew, and maybe enabling him would only make things worse. But sealing was all Kagome had now. Trying to take that coping mechanism away could only end in disaster.

"Is the second auxiliary seal in place?" Kagome asked hoarsely.

"The one in the far right corner? Yes, it looks fine."

"Have you done the Lucky Dance Mark Five?"

Mari couldn't help rolling her eyes. "Yes, but only because Jiraiya wasn't watching."

"Stuff Jiraiya. He thinks I can't pull off the Kamitonaru Seal just because every sealmaster in history who tried it got splattered across up to eleven dimensions. He doesn't understand. I can do it. I have to do it. I'll bring them back, you'll see."

Mari processed that statement. "Every sealmaster in history? Wait, Kagome, don't—"

Kagome's hand touched the seal blank.

Reality shattered.

Around Mari, tiny shards of the world she knew seemed to reflect each other, endless tunnels of facing mirrors, refracted light bouncing between them and through them in a visible zigzag pattern. One of those tunnels led home, she was sure, but she'd also been split into infinite fragments, beams of light striking her like great waves overwhelming an unready swimmer, and she had no idea how to reassemble herself, much less move through the space she was in.

One fragment of Mari, small enough that it was accelerated by the impact of light, spun past like a malformed shuriken, and was instantly swallowed up by the infinity stretching between two others.

"So what do you reckon, Inoue? Ready to start your own village?"
​

-o-
​

Mari existed again. All of her was in one place. All of her was in one time. She was aware of her body as a single distinct object, and perceived her environment through ordinary human senses. She had not been devoured by the sealing failure.

What it had done to her was still up for debate.

"Inoue?" Shikigami repeated. "Pull yourself together, Inoue. You've only had half a bottle."

Mari's reflexes, honed over years of waking up in unfamiliar places with no idea what was going on, let her respond instantly.

"Sorry, Shikigami. My mind was elsewhere. You're right, though, you should pour me another one." Ten other ones, ideally, before she could begin to deal with what was happening.

Shikigami. Gorō Dan. A private room at Kurohige's. Poor lighting, too much cheap saké, and an outrageous idea that had changed her life forever.

There was no mistaking the place. There was no mistaking the person. And that meant… there was no mistaking the time.

Mari's mind flashed back to the campfire stories. A sealing failure could send itself backwards through time. What if, crazy as it sounded, it could send a person backwards through time as well? What if Mari really was back at Kurohige's?

Suppose she was. Either way, if she was seeing this, she was either a time traveller, dreaming, insane or in some kind of twisted supernatural hell that would soon reveal its true nature. In any and all of those scenarios, it made the most sense to play along.

No. Not just play along. If she was back in the past, she could change things. This time, she could keep them safe. She was better now, she dared to think. Stronger. Wiser. Maybe even worthier. She would find them and atone for her failure and give them the future they deserved. And she knew how to take the first step.

"Where did you say we'd be going?" she asked, in case the conversation hadn't reached that point yet.

"The Swamp of Death," Shikigami said impatiently. "The single deadliest place in the world—unless you're with me. Now, I don't want to push you, Inoue, but I do need a response before you leave this table."

Of course, there was only one response that would let her leave this table, at least alive. But Shikigami had known what to expect when he first approached her. He knew her secret fear, and he knew she wouldn't be able to resist the chance to put a sea, half a continent, and a small army between her and the Mizukage.

"I'm in," she said. "But I'm not on board with your choice of holiday destination."

She couldn't tell him she knew the future. Shikigami was a man with both feet planted deep in the ground, and the last thing she needed was for him to think she was mocking him on the night that he finally revealed his grand plan. But the Swamp of Death was simply too dangerous when she didn't know whether events would follow the same path this time round.

"Last time I talked to an agent coming back from Leaf," she said with a serious expression, "he told me the Hyūga had stepped up their patrols thanks to the mess over the border in Noodle. We wouldn't make it halfway to the swamp before they found us."

Shikigami clenched his jaw. "How sure are you?"

"He wasn't lying," Mari said. "You know I can tell. I guess it's possible he had faulty intel, but I'd rather not bet my life on it."

Shikigami downed the rest of his saké in one violent motion, then slammed the cup down on the table. "Byakuren's floating balls," he spat.

"Why don't we head east instead?" Mari asked smoothly. "I hear Marsh is very nice this time of year."
​

-o-
​

She hadn't been ready.

She'd let herself grow complacent during her time in Leaf, and now she was reaping the consequences. A woman who had thrown down the gauntlet to destiny itself had no right to relax. She had no right to lower her guard just because she thought she'd overcome one single obstacle. She of all people should have known that saving a life was nowhere near as hard as making sure it stayed saved.

Somewhere in the distance, fire and lightning flared briefly through the darkness as the hunter-nin battled the people she no longer thought of as comrades. She didn't know who'd win this time, with Mist having no Leaf support and Hidden Swamp having suffered much less attrition, but once again she wasn't sticking around to find out. She had to keep the survivors safe.

All two of them.

It was her fault. She should have realised that she'd broken something with her meddling. She didn't know why it had affected Hazō, and seemingly only Hazō, but seeing the differences in his behaviour should have given her a clue. He was still bright. Still creative. Still caring. But something, some kind of spark that she had always taken for granted, simply wasn't there. He didn't come up with spur-of-the-moment plans. He didn't swerve wildly between empathic insight and tracking mud all over people's feelings. He didn't even care about lists. She shouldn't have been surprised when Shikigami didn't make him a squad leader this time round, and she should have realised the implications.

It had been easy enough to find Keiko when the screaming and the explosions started. Mari never lost track of Keiko, and she was certainly making sure of it now, when her daughter's emotional stability was once again on a knife edge. But this time, the three kids weren't squadmates, and they weren't sleeping together.

The new Hidden Swamp, located in a sparsely inhabited country with no ninja village, had a far more sprawling layout than the single cave complex they'd had in the Swamp of Death. She and Keiko should have split up to find them, she'd known that even at the time, but it would have meant letting Keiko out of her sight in a warzone. Mari couldn't do it again. Instead, they'd found Hazō in the nick of time, and saved him from the attackers… but they'd been too late for Noburi.

Mari had failed her quest before it even began.
​

-o-
​

Later that night, after they'd done all the running they could, and exhaustion had mercifully sent the kids to sleep before they could fully take in the scope of what happened, Mari stayed up to plan.

Her endgame hadn't changed. She would reunite her family, and she would bring them back to Leaf. Even if something had happened to Hazō's muse, she still knew the principle behind the skywalkers, and Kagome should still be able to produce them. This time, she'd be able to save the Hokage, and preserve Leaf's position of strength… and she would damn well make sure her kids weren't going anywhere before they were jōnin.

Unfortunately, with no Swamp of Death, Jiraiya wouldn't be tracking them, and they had no hope of hunting down a disguised legendary spymaster on their own initiative. That meant they wouldn't be able to earn his trust over time as deniable assets, or learn ninjutsu from him as a reward. They would need to work a lot harder to convince him to create the Gōketsu Clan… though on the plus side, at least this time they wouldn't be the Cold Stone Killers.
​

-o-
​

It was all wrong.

It wasn't just that the kids weren't quite her kids, with experiences that they no longer shared and bonds that had no longer been made, and her occasionally reaching out to touch a familiar part of them only to find a gaping abyss. It was the entire dynamic. She hadn't realised until now how important Noburi's light-hearted, easy-going nature had been to her team of quiet introverts. Without him, there was too much silence, and not enough conflict.

Hazō still had something missing. He'd taken easily to sealing, but he was no longer driving Kagome insane with terrifying seal ideas, or giving dramatic inspirational speeches at the drop of a hat. He was no longer Akane's master. Akane herself was working hard to fill in the gap she didn't even know existed, and providing what emotional support she could to those prepared to accept it, but she was relying more and more on Youth to keep it up, and that was a disaster waiting to happen.

The other thing Mari hadn't realised was how much Hazō's attempts to micro-manage his teammates' lives had taken the burden off her. Despite his questionable rate of success, the mere fact of his trying often gave them the push they needed to get on with solving their own problems, or kept them busy long enough for Mari to find the time and energy to take over. She didn't have that now.

Keiko, ironically, was actually doing better. The brief night of terror in Marsh had been less damaging to her than the days of wearying despair in the Swamp of Death, and Mari's ability to look after her psychologically had been vastly improved by experience. At times, when Mari was too tired or too busy, she'd resort to giving Keiko an exhaustive set of instructions and leaving her in charge, and it only rarely ended in chaos.

She just wished she knew what to do with Kagome. The bond between him and Hazō was surprisingly weaker without the latter's constant intellectual prodding, and that left Kagome at an emotional loose end which she had to manage, maintaining his loyalty to the team until it could solidify into the bond she remembered.

Still, she had hope. In Leaf, there had to be resources for fixing whatever was wrong with Hazō. The Yamanaka, maybe, or the Third Hokage himself with his legendary stores of knowledge. She'd already failed to protect one of her children. She had to do whatever it took for the rest.
​

-o-
​

"Explain to me how you know that code," the Hokage said. There was no particular menace to his voice, as the weight of his gaze alone was enough to pin Mari to the spot and make sure she stayed there. To his side, Jiraiya watched silently, and Mari couldn't be sure whether he was undressing her with his eyes or figuring out how to minimise the damage to his mentor's office when he had to kill her.

"I'd be happy to share that information with you," Mari lied, "but first I would like to explain who we are and why we chose to walk up to one of your patrols and surrender unconditionally." She couldn't ask for permission to change the subject, because he might refuse, and the gentle reminder they were here by choice and completely in his power might make him relax a little and not sweat the small stuff.

"I am Inoue Mari, formerly a jōnin of Hidden Mist. These are Mori Keiko and Kurosawa Hazō, formerly genin of Hidden Mist, and that is Kagome." Akane had been escorted away separately, which was a little worrying, but she was confident the girl wouldn't be touched until the Hokage's business here was finished.

Kagome glared balefully as the two Leaf ninja's eyes turned to him.

"We fled Mist," Mari hurried on, "over irreconcilable ideological differences with the Mizukage, and now we have come to Leaf to offer you a mutually beneficial trade."

"You expect us to treat a missing-nin as a trading partner?" the Hokage asked with overt curiosity which did not try to fully mask the gaping spike pit underneath.

Mari carefully ignored that question and moved on to the bait. "We are willing to offer you the services of an elite Mist jōnin specialist in infiltration, seduction," she allowed her eyes to flick to Jiraiya briefly enough that he couldn't be sure it had happened at all, "and genjutsu, a veteran sealmaster specialising in security and demolitions," it was important to specify so as to avoid touching Jiraiya's childish pride as a general expert, "a sealmaster with the unique Iron Nerve Bloodline Limit, and a bearer of the Frozen Skein Bloodline Limit who has been accepted as Summoner by the Pangolin Clan."

Two pairs of eyes went wide at that last statement. Mari smirked inwardly. This time, instead of diplomatic flailing in Hidden Mountain, they had simply made use of the Kagome Lockpick and then fished the indestructible summoning scroll out of the crater. Granted, Keiko had missed out on Takahashi's training, but Jiraiya would probably make a better teacher anyway, given that Takahashi had never summoned anything in his life.

"The Pangolin Summoning Scroll has been lost for centuries," Jiraiya observed sceptically. "Show me."

At Mari's nod, Keiko pulled out the scroll and handed it to Jiraiya, making sure to unfurl it enough for him to see her signature. In this new timeline where Jiraiya had no particular feelings about any of them, Mari didn't want him to get any ideas about taking it away.

"Huh," Jiraiya said. "This may well be the real thing." He refocused on Mari with new intensity. "Where did you find it?"

"In the hands of an isolated hidden village full of skilled ninja not currently aligned with any political power," Mari smiled, "the location of which we would also be happy to provide as part of this deal." Wherever "her" Takahashi was, it wasn't here, and Mari didn't feel she owed anything to his temporal twin. More importantly neither did Keiko.

"Is that everything?" the Hokage asked, whether to downplay the significance of what they'd just offered him, or because he could tell it wasn't.

"By no means," Mari said. "We are also willing to offer you the designs for a seal capable of allowing any shinobi to freely walk on thin air." It had not been cheap or easy to find Kagome Air Dome seals with the resources of a handful of missing-nin unwilling to take stupid risks, but the results spoke for themselves.

The Hokage and Jiraiya exchanged brief glances, probably to the effect of Is that possible? and I don't know but I want to see it.

"And finally," Mari mentally took a very deep breath, "I am willing to offer Jiraiya my hand in marriage."

Jiraiya's eyes bulged. The Hokage moved to brush a strand of hair from his face in a way that momentarily blocked her view of his expression. Mari was pretty sure she'd successfully thrown a spanner into whatever gears had been turning in their heads.

"Marriage?" Jiraiya repeated incredulously. "As in the ceremonial and legal union of a man and a woman?"

"One of those," Mari confirmed, then turned to the Hokage. "The greatest of the Three, Leaf's second most powerful and valuable ninja, your preferred candidate for Fourth Hokage, has no clan and no family. That automatically puts him at a serious disadvantage when it comes to competition with the noble clans, and it means that if he should perish, all of his skills and experience will be lost with him. At the same time, he can't simply marry into an existing clan without surrendering his independence and some of his authority. He can, however, begin a new clan of his own, which will be born with a powerful jōnin, two sealmasters, two Bloodline Limits unavailable in Leaf, and one summoner of a summon clan already on good terms with Jiraiya's own."

Jiraiya burst out laughing. If she knew her temporarily ex-husband, her proposal had shocked him out of his wary mood, and then her audacity, a trait he was generally fond of, had pushed him towards amusement as his new state. Just as planned.

The Hokage was not so easy to affect. "What are you requesting in return?" he asked plainly.

Mari let the silence stretch for a few seconds.

"Nothing."

"Nothing," Jiraiya repeated with a wry grin.

"Of course," Mari said, "it's a package deal. If we become part of Leaf, that's all the incentive we need to offer you our skills and knowledge. And we would also require a pardon for Ishihara Akane."

The Hokage was silent for a while.

"Why have you chosen to make this offer to Leaf?"

"Multiple reasons," Mari said, mindful of the need to sound neither too mercenary nor too much like Hazō—the old Hazō—during his more impassioned moments.

"Leaf is the strongest village, and thus most likely to guarantee our safety. It is also the greatest enemy of our enemy, which is to say Hidden Mist. Jiraiya has a unique benefit he can obtain from us, giving you extra incentive to accept our offer. And finally, we believe in the Leaf ideal. Both during our time in Mist and during our travels, we've witnessed a lot of suffering caused by shinobi warfare, but also by ruthless exploitation of the civilian population. Leaf is known for its unique vision of a global peace in which shinobi and civilians willingly combine their efforts for the greater good. We want our skills to serve that vision rather than being used to perpetuate a status quo that hurts everybody in the long run."

The Hokage nodded thoughtfully, revealing nothing. "Jiraiya, kindly have them taken to secure guest quarters to await our judgement."
​

-o-
​

It wasn't the same, of course. It could never be the same, and Mari had known it from the start. But it was close. She was learning to love the kids and Kagome the way she had loved their "predecessors". The people of Leaf, by and large, were the same as they ever were. Jiraiya wasn't Hokage anymore, but on the other hand saving the Third's life with a timely warning had given her standing with both men a much-needed boost.

Akatsuki had been foiled, at least for now, the Third having decided that removing the Mizukage by luring him into their ambush wasn't worth advancing their dangerous plans. Leaf still had the skywalkers, after all, and this time round Mist didn't have the wealth of Hot Springs to draw on.

Hazō and Kagome were enjoying their sealing research, though without the barrage of innovations that had characterised their original selves. Hazō wasn't going for a harem this time round, and indeed even he and Akane were just good friends. On the other hand, Keiko, whom Mari had been able to help earlier and better this time round, had successfully charmed and/or intimidated the other genin into accepting her relationship with Tenten.

Most importantly, the Chūnin Exams had passed without incident (and without the Gōketsu), and Mari's long-awaited future was about to arrive.

And when it did, it surpassed all expectations.

"Mari, kids, we need you in the Hokage's office," Jiraiya exclaimed as he rushed into the dining room. "Sarutobi-sensei wants our resident Mist experts available ten minutes ago."

Soon, before the watchful eyes of the entire Gōketsu Clan, minus Kagome but plus the Hokage, four heavily-armed ANBU escorted two strangers to stand in the middle of the room.

At least one of them looked vaguely familiar, but Hazō identified her before Mari had a chance.

"Mum?!"

Ignoring all protocol as he was still wont to do, Hazō practically flew into Kurosawa Hana's arms. She held him tightly, moisture gathering in her eyes.

Finally, Hana extracted herself from her son's grip and bowed deeply.

"My apologies, Lord Hokage, Lord Gōketsu, esteemed Gōketsu Clan members. With your permission, I will renew my acquaintance with my son on a different occasion."

Nicely done, Mari noted in the back of her head. If the Hokage now imprisoned her or sent her away, he would be explicitly preventing the reunion of a long-lost family which had just reminded them all of the depth of their mutual affection.

"As you are now doubtless aware, I am Kurosawa Hana, a jōnin formerly of Mist and, separately, formerly of the Kurosawa Clan. I trust my son has provided you with a great deal of information regarding my background and abilities, and I would be honoured to answer any further questions you may have. I thank you for your hospitality."

Attention shifted to her companion, a tall, powerful-looking young man with eyes that were instinctively scanning the room. Hazō, who until then hadn't had a chance to register his presence, met his eyes. Mari saw the expression that passed across both of their faces, and in that moment she understood everything.

"My name is Kurosawa Hanzō," the young man introduced himself. "I am a genin formerly of Mist. I am the third son of Kurosawa Ren, and have received clan training in sealcrafting, negotiation and swordsmanship. I abandoned Mist over disagreement with the Mizukage's jingoistic and inhumane policies, and persuaded Aunt Hana to join me. We request to join Hazō as members of the Gōketsu Clan. In addition to our skills, experience and bloodline, as well as the latest intelligence on Mist, I personally would like to offer a number of what I believe to be unique sealing ideas, including ways to revolutionise Leaf's industrial sphere through creative application of the unexplored properties of Force Walls."

Silence reigned as those present processed the new information. Hana looked briefly at Mari and her body language underwent a subtle shift only a fellow master could read: I am your equal, but I submit to you because one of us must have authority over the other. Mari, still in the grip of revelation, made the appropriate counter-stance on pure reflex.

Hazō ignored all of them. His whisper was addressed to Hanzō alone, but it reverberated through the room as if it was an echo of something greater.

"So what happens now?"

Kurosawa Hanzō gave a mischievous smile.

"I don't know, Cousin. But I can't wait to find out together."​

 

[eaglejarl]

A quick note of explanation: The original rules for this quest were not very good. Among other things, there was no systematized way to design jutsu, so every time we (the QMs) created one it required a lot of effort and worry about balance. Back in chapter 162 the team was at the Chūnin Exams and in the middle of a fight. There were twelve ninja on each side, and having to come up with that many characters and jutsu completely broke the QMs. Since then we've been working on a redesign based off the Dresden Files RPG rules that will give us a little more stability and an easier time designing things. We're hoping to get done with the process very soon. This week's update is, as per player request, Hazō going back in time to re-fight old battles as a way of testing the new rules and checking to see if our heroes have been nerfed in the transition. There's one thing in the following that I'm not sure about, which is whether you can make a social attack and a physical attack in the same round. For now I'm saying yes, but that might change. With that, on with the show!

---

Chapter 28 version 2: Let the Bodies Hit the Floor...Again​

"Kai," Hazō whispered, making the hand seal for the Dispelling technique. Sadly, the world completely failed to shatter around him, so this was either Mari-sensei being sadistic with her un-Dispellable supergenjutsu, or the booze at last night's pre-Chūnin-Exam-departure party had been a little stronger than expected...or, somehow, it was actually real. He sincerely hoped that it was just Sadist-Sensei getting up to her tricks and that at any moment he was going to snap out of it and find his hair being ruffled. He couldn't remember failing any seal infusions recently, but his brain was offkilter from shock so maybe it was just rejecting the memory? Please, please, please let this be Mari-sensei's idea of a prank.

He stood still for a moment, hoping. Nope. Damnit. Hair distinctly unruffled.

With a sigh, he tied the bandana-mask around his face, leaving it loose around his neck for now. It would impair his breathing, so he didn't want to wear it any longer than necessary. At the same time, if he really was, somehow and against all reason, back at the edge of the clearing where he had killed Bosatsu and his team all those awful months ago, then he really didn't want to breathe that girl's knockout drug, so the mask seemed wise. And, as much as he wanted to deny it, it really looked like he was: that twisted tree over there, covered in virulently orange mold, was very distinctive, especially in combination with the small semi-motile vampire bush that had camped out next to it.

He dropped to all fours and leopard-crawled forward, moving fast until he was in sight of the clearing, then slowing down and shifting only one limb at a time. With each movement he paused to check that there was nothing under that limb that would make noise when he put weight on it. A smile curved his lips for a moment; the previous time he'd been through this experience it had been far harder to stay quiet. It was a reminder of just how much he'd improved.

Spoiler: Roll ALL the rolls! [spoilers for the action]

Zones: The clearing (1 zone), the surrounding forest (4 zones, one on each side of the clearing), the zone where Mirai is guarding the prisoners (other side of the northern forest zone, two zones from the clearing). All zones have border 0 for transit but provide +3 to stealth due to thick trees / bushes / etc.

• Do the enemy spot Hazō sneaking up on them?
  • Hazō, Stealth, 15 + 3 (CM) + 4dF => 18
  • Bosatsu, Alertness + 4dF => 17
  • Ken, Alertness + 4dF => 29
• Ken does, Bosatsu doesn't. Bosatsu gets the Aspect 'Flat-Footed'. On Ken's initiative he will shout a warning and Bosatsu will lose the Aspect. In the meantime, does Ken manage to hide the fact that he spotted Hazō?
  • Ken, Deceit + 4dF => 21
  • Hazō, Deceit (notice Ken's Deceit), 24 + 4dF => 24
• Nice try, Ken, but no Oscar for you. Hazō realizes he's been made and has to move fast. Time for initiative!
  1. Hazō
  2. Bosatsu
  3. Ken
  4. Mirai (once she shows up)
  5. Akane (she's at her original stats)
• Hazō moves to Bosatsu, who is staring gormlessly around. Are these guys dumb enough to fall for Hazō's new-depending-on-your-perspective style?
  • Hazō, (24 Deceit + 2 Roki Aspect bonus) + 4dF => 23
  • Bosatsu, Deceit + 4dF vs Roki: 18 Damn, the dice love this guy!
  • Ken, Deceit + 4dF vs Roki: 9
  • Hazō wins! He gains +5 to his Taijutsu against Bosatsu for the rest of the round, plus a tag on the "It's Hammer (fist) Time!" Aspect
  • Hazō wins! He gains +14 to his Taijutsu against Ken for the rest of the round, plus a tag on the "Can't Touch This!" Aspect
• Hazō tries to punch Bosatsu's head off
  • Hazō, Taijutsu (32) + 3 boost + 3 (pangolin gauntlets) + 5 for Roki + 4 (free tag on the 'Flat-Footed' Aspect due to ambush) + 4 (free tag on the "It's Hammer (fist) Time!" Aspect from Roki = 51 + 4dF => 54
  • Bosatsu, successfully taken in by Roki, underestimates Hazō and doesn't go all out. Taijutsu + 4 boost + 4 (invoke 'Biggest Badass in the Bunch') + 4dF: 33 Aaaand, there's the karmic balance restored.
  • Hazō deals 8 shifts (!!!), (21/3 = 7 on the roll plus 1 for Ninja Hands, which works like Weapon:1). Bosatsu has a 3-box stress track + 6 stress worth of Consequences. He takes a Mild ("Bruised and Battered"), Moderate ("Restricted Motion"), and Severe ("Crushed Ribs") consequence, as well as 2 stress. He is the next best thing to dead.
• Bosatsu's turn. He's too beat-up to have a chance in a physical fight so he needs to fight smart. There's no reasonable Maneuver he can do that will succeed and be decisive. If he had infinite time maybe he could come up with a good answer, but he's only got a second or two. He's got one option, and it's a bad one: mutual kill via explosive tag
  • Bosatsu, Athletics + invoke "Endless Will" + invoke "Team Leader" + invoke "My Team, My Family" + tag "Acceptance is Power" - 11 (3 Consequences = -3.5 * Aspect Bonus): 22 Reroll with his last FP!
  • Bosatsu, Athletics + 8 boost + invoke "Endless Will" + invoke "Team Leader" + invoke "My Team, My Family" + tag "Acceptance is Power" - 11 (3 Consequences = -3.5 * Aspect Bonus): 42 Booya!
  • Hazō, Athletics 30 + 4 boost + tag all 3 of Bosatsu's Consequences: 55
  • Ken, Athletics + 8 boost + tag "I Thought That Plan was a Joke?!?!!": 38
  • Akane, Athletics + 5 boost: 14 Reroll!
  • Akane, Athletics + 5 boost + 6 CM (she is irrelevant to Bosatsu and he's not aiming for her): 26
  • Oops. The explosion catches Ken and Akane, but not Hazō. That's pretty much the opposite of what Bosatsu was trying to accomplish. The tag is Weapon:4 and Bosatsu rolled a 42. Ken rolled a 38 so he takes (42-38=) 4 / 3 = 2 + Weapon:4 = 6 shifts; he takes Mild ("Strained Hammy") and Moderate ("Barbeque Ribs") Consequences and 2 stress. Akane rolled 26 so she takes (42-26=) 16 / 3 = 6 + Weapon:4 = 10 shifts. She's dead. Bosatsu, of course, was actually holding the tag. He's instadead.
• Okay, Ken's turn. He's backing out of melee range (meaning he can't be counterattacked by a Taijutsu fighter like Hazō) and attacking with his Firefly jutsu, which is a little fuzzy on the subject of kneecaps. Taking a lesson from Bosatsu's mistake, he's not treating Hazō like a pushover, no matter what lies Roki is telling him.
  • Ken, Firefly no Jutsu + 8 boost + 8 (2 invokes that I'm too lazy to figure out Aspects for) - 6 (Consequences: -1.5x Aspect bonus) + 4dF => 38
  • Hazō, Athletics (30) + 4 (tag "Can't Touch This!" Aspect from Roki) + 8 boost + 4dF => 42
  • Hazō is unhurt but absolutely livid. This team killed Akane! They are all going to die in the most brutal way imaginable.
• Hey, Mirai, did you hear any of this?
  • Mirai, Awareness: something-that-was-not-a-1
    Congratulation, Mirai! You are not deaf, so you get to protect your teammates!
• Round 2, fight!
• Hazō explains to Ken that he and his team have made some poor life choices
  • Hazō, Intimidation (14) + 4 (Thousand-Yard Stare) + 4 CM (emotional intensity): 22
  • Ken, Resolve - 3 (Mild/Moderate Consequences) + 4dF : 9
  • Ken takes (22-9) / 3 = 5 Mental stress. He has a 2 box track, so he gains the (Mild) Mental Consequence "I Just Crapped Myself", giving him another -0.5 * Aspect bonus, for a total of -2.
• Time to back up the threat. Does Hazō get Roki against Ken?
  • Hazō, Deceit + 2 (Roki Aspect Bonus) + 4dF => 32
  • Ken, Deceit + 4dF => 6 These dice are more drunk than they were last time I ran this fight.
  • Hazō would get +26 against Ken, but it's capped by his Roki level (17), so it's a 'measly' +17. Also, Ken gets the "It's Tricky to Read Your Moves, to Read Your Moves, and So I Lose, It's Tricky!" Aspect and Hazō gets a tag on it. Things do not look good for the Ken team.
• He does! He's going to punch Ken. Repeatedly.
  • Hazō, Taijutsu 32 + 3 (pangolin gauntlets) + 17 (Roki) + 4 (free tag on the "It's Tricky to Read Your Moves, to Read Your Moves, and So I Lose, It's Tricky!" Aspect) => 56 dude! /Bill-and-Ted
  • Ken, Athletics + 4 (invoke 'Fast and Bright as Flame') - 6 (Consequences) + 4dF: 38
  • Ken takes 18/3 = 6 stress. He's down, but Hazō chooses not to kill him. Yet.
• Mirai arrives! Does Hazō get Roki against her?
  • Hazō, Deceit (24) + 2 (Roki Aspect Bonus) + 4dF: 17 Dude?!
  • Mirai, Deceit + 4dF: 18
  • Hazō gets -1 against Mirai this round
• Mirai attacks
  • Mirai, Weapons + 8 boost + 4 (invoke 'Sharp as My Blades') + 4 (invoke 'Whirling Dervish of Death') + 4dF: 47
  • Hazō, Taijutsu 32 + 3 (pangolin gauntlets) + 8 boost - 1 (Roki failure) + 4dF: 51
  • Mirai takes 2 stress. She's got a 3-box track so she's okay.
• Round 3, Fight!
• Hazō tries to fake Mirai out
  • Hazō, Deceit (24) + 2 (Roki Aspect Bonus) + 4dF: 26
  • Mirai, Deceit + 4dF: 9
  • Hazō gets +17 against Mirai this round
• Hazō does horrible things to Mirai
  • Hazō, Taijutsu + 3 (gauntlets) + 2 boost + 17 (Roki) + 4 (tag the "Not Where You Thought I Was!" Aspect from Roki) + 6 boost + 4dF = 69
  • Mirai: I'm not even bothering. She dies. A lot. Like, dead right there, and there, and there....

Afterwards, Hazō would never know what he'd done wrong. Maybe he'd rustled a branch? Maybe he hadn't contained his killing intent quite well enough? Whatever it was, he knew he'd messed up when the enemy ninja on the left—Ken, his partners had called him during their earlier ambush—stiffened. It was just slightly and just for a moment, but it was there. Ken covered it immediately, but Hazō saw the telltale signs and knew he was blown.

Surging to his feet, he drove forward with chakra roaring through his body as he pushed himself beyond his limits in an effort to close the range before they could kill Akane. Ken leaped back, shouting for his third teammate even as his hands flicked through seals. Bosatsu, the taijutsu fighter, looked around in surprise to see where the threat was coming from.

Everything seemed to slow around Hazō, leaving him all the time in the world to ponder. He'd intended to take Ken out first; Hazō remembered all too well the power of his Firefly jutsu and had no interest in trying to get past ten sparks of forge-hot flame so he could attack their master. Unfortunately for Ken, the Iron missing-nin had made a severe tactical error: his backwards leap had put him within a few steps of Akane. Hazō's brilliantly lethal girlfriend would crush Ken like an egg. No need to worry about that side of things, and Bosatsu was facing the wrong way, turning so-very-slowly in the treacle time that was the rush of chakra-enhanced combat. Hazō wouldn't quite be able to blindside him but he'd still be attacking from the flank. No self-respecting ninja would pass up an opportunity like that.

His heart soared as he tagged Bosatsu with a hard-style kick that knocked him across the clearing and crushed three ribs. The other ninja managed to roll with it, but came up gasping for air and bent over, one hand clutching his side. For a moment, Hazō thought that was going to be enough, but the other boy forced himself to straighten and take a guard stance. His hands were low, the shattered ribs not letting him lift his hards high enough, so Hazō leaped, coming down from above with a massive hammerfist to the temple that would have blasted bone fragments through Bosatsu's brain and dropped him instantly. It wasn't a move he would ever have tried against an uninjured ninja as it left him far too vulnerable, his motion far too predictable, but against someone who couldn't raise their arms? It was just the—

Bosatsu twisted to the side, the resulting flare of agony shown only in a muffled hiss. His right arm, not nearly as restricted as he'd been pretending, came up in an uppercut that would meet Hazō's descending chin and snap his neck like a rotten twi—

Except that the hammerfist was a cover for the toe kick into the already-broken ribs that sent Bosatsu to his knees with a muffled scream. Hazō was on him with a knee to the chin and then followed him down, a slash with his pangolin-gifted gauntlets tearing gaping wounds down the enemy's chest. He continued the motion into a roll and launched himself at Ken, shoving to the side with one hand as he went to make the motion oblique. Bosatsu wasn't dead but he was out of the fight; Hazō needed to get to Akane before Ken hurt her like he had last time.

"Hotaru no Jutsu!" Ken shouted, finishing the handseals for his technique. Sparks fountained from his hands, streaking for Hazō in a blazing, fluttering swarm. Each of the ten sparks followed the guidance of a single finger, swooping in and out as Ken's hands danced. The sparks flicked towards Hazō at impossible speed, but they were aimed for where he should have been, crouched after his leap instead of rolling forward and to the side like a loose ball on a rocky field. Two of the sparks caught Hazō glancing blows, burning painful wounds in his back and leg, but it wasn't enough to slow him down and it was more than enough to keep him focused on the wrong person so that Akane could—

"Die!" Akane yelled, punching Ken in the face as she'd been taught so long ago. Something was wrong; she lacked the smooth, flowing motions that Mari-sensei had drilled into her, the raw power of her Youthful Fist of the Mythological Beast that is Really Strong and Tough technique missing. She fought like the genin she had been the first time they'd gone through this fight and Hazō's heart surged into his throat. She'd been no match for the Iron nin back then and had barely survived with heavy damage. Whatever weird time travel was going on here, she either hadn't come back with Hazō or she hadn't brought her skills with her. And that meant she was probably going to die.

Ken twisted aside from her clumsy attack with contemptuous ease, his sparks dancing between them and darting towards Akane's eyes, forcing her offbalance as she drove forward. The sparks scorched her face and hair but she ducked and wove enough to keep herself from being solidly tagged as she moved in, rage and determination surging through her. She would prevent this enemy from damaging Nishino-sensei. She would not give up, would not be that pitiful girl who had run from punishment instead of facing it with honor, that weakling who had lacked the strength of will to train herself before Nishino-sensei showed her the way. She was done with getting second chances, done with failure! She. Would. Conquer!

There were only a couple dozen yards separating Hazō from the two of them, but it seemed like miles. Ken danced around his precious Akane, flicking the sparks in her way to drive her where he wanted, or burning them into her flesh to interrupt her attacks. She didn't drive and she didn't interrupt; no matter what he did, she just kept coming. He dodged back, keeping her between himself and the monster that had just destroyed his teammate in one pass. He yelled for Mirai and kept yelling, desperation rising in his heart. There was no way he could take these two by himself, but if she could get here and hold them off while he used his jutsu at range then they would have a chance.

Thirty steps separated Hazō from his beautiful, precious, insanely determined heart. Twenty. Eighteen. He would not allow her to be hurt like last time! He would—

The sound of an unsteady footstep from behind made Hazō look back. His eyes went wide at the sight of Bosatsu lunging towards him with a primed explosive tag in one hand, the other reaching out to grapple Hazō close. Frantically, Hazō threw himself aside, the power of the Iron Nerve replaying the smoothest, longest tumbling pass he'd ever made in order to open the distance as much as—

The world went white and silent for a split second, then came back blurry and ringing. Hazō's arm was clumsy as he swiped the blood off his face; one hand brushed a few chunks of gristle off his chest without his brain telling it to.

Bosatsu had been physically holding the tag when it went off. What was left of him looked pretty much like the remains of a Sagemass roast after the feast was done. Ken had managed to dive clear of the blast, albeit with a torn-up shirt and some burns down his left side. All of that was barely registering, as the world tunneled down around the one key fact of existence: Akane was dead.

She'd been too slow, still too inexperienced. Her face was crushed in as though it had been hit with a sledgehammer, both her legs had snapped like toothpicks, and her ribcage was concave.

The machine that had once been Kurosawa Hazō turned with exacting precision, the portals to a soul filled with frozen fire locking on to Ken.

"I am going to peel your face off and choke you with it," Hazō said calmly, the words seeming to come from far away and without intervention from his mind.

Ken's face went white; he stood frozen for a long second until a shout from the edge of the woods caused his head to jerk spasmodically to the right where Mirai had just burst out of the trees, the chain of her kusarigama already spinning as she charged to her team's rescue. Relief lent his muscles extra power as he turned and leaped for the cover of her blades and chains.

Hazō watched the enemy turn in seeming slow motion. Everything was far off, calm, and unable to touch him. Part of him wondered, in a vague and far-off way, if perhaps skinning an opponent would be in the category 'things Akane would disapprove of' but the question lacked sufficient interest to hold his attention. Instead, he surged to his feet and flung himself towards the enemy.

Mirai shifted the angle of her chain's spin so Ken would have space to slip past her. At the same time, she pushed chakra into her veins, infusing every part of itself with its strength. The familiar feeling of godlike speed and power buoyed her up, made the world seem slow and calm as her eyes flicked around, assessing the situation. Bosatsu was down, and from the damage it had been done up close and personal. This enemy, whom she mentally dubbed 'Mr. Target', was clearly a close-in taijutsu type; he wore claws on his hands and he was covered in blood, although it looked like it wasn't his. If he was good enough to take Bosatsu out then she didn't dare engage. Fortunately, she didn't need to. Ken would be past her in another breath and ready to turn and use his jutsu. All she needed to do was keep the kama and the chain spinning, leaving no openings for striking or being struck. If she fought purely defensively and gave ground as needed then she could keep Mr. Target tied up until Ken dropped him on the ground in a pile of burnt meat. Once he was down they could show him what it meant to hurt one of her te—

Mirai's brain stuttered and lost its place as Mr. Target accelerated faster than anyone should have been able to, catching up to Ken as though the ninjutsu user were standing still. The left-hand set of claws latched into his shoulder, curling over from behind and then hooking up under the collarbone. Ken shrieked in agony as he was pulled back, his center of gravity going out from under him, leaving him face-up and falling backwards. The right-hand claws came around in a haymaker that pierced straight through the side of the knee and out the other side before ripping back out, leaving the lower leg anchored only by a few shreds of meat. The left-hand claws tore their way up and out, shattering Ken's collarbone in the process.

There was no pause, no chance to react; one moment the monster that had gutted her team was dropping a screaming Ken to the ground and an instant later he was ravening towards her with the fury of the Reaper come to collect its due.

"You son of a bitch!" she yelled, forcing her useless terror to shift to uplifting fury. The strength of her rage, the power of her chakra, and every trace of hard-won experience sent her kama whistling out at full extension, the blade arcing viciously up and across.

The monster faked left and went right; she caught the weight shift just in time and lashed out with the weight on the back end of the kusarigama's chain, whipping it across like a flail to crush the Reaper's head as it blurred towards her with bloody claws upraised. She was almost fast enough; the monster got an arm up on the chain, shortening the angle of its swing so that the weight cracked against shoulder muscle instead of the intended back of the skull. She was yanked forward, the monster's power overcoming her balance and pulling her into the claws, but she managed to release the chain with one hand and pivoted so that instead of being gutted from shoulder to crotch she was merely sliced across her left arm.

An instant later she had to dive aside again from the fist that was about to crush her head. She saw where the monster was moving and swung the chain of her weapon out horizontally, creating a blocking zone around herself while she frantically scrubbed her eyes against her shoulder to clear her vision. The sickle followed behind the chain in an automatic cut that had been drilled into her muscles through thousands of hours of practice, far beyond the point where she needed to see to make the cut clean and deadly.

Hazō dropped to a crouch and spun to the side, watching with calm detachment as the chain floated in seeming slow motion over his head. It left him ample time to glide forward in its wake. The sickle came down in a diagonal cut, top-left to bottom-right. There was no thought, no choice, no rational decision. He didn't choose to step in and raise his right arm to deflect the attack. He didn't decide to roll his hand around and push, adding to the force of the cut and guiding it in towards the enemy's body. When the tip of the sickle slammed into its wielder's thigh and drew the scream from her throat, he didn't think about whether he should dig the right-hand set of claws in at the base of her stomach and yank upwards, gutting her like a trout from crotch to sternum. He didn't ponder if he should pivot to her side so that his left hand could curl around her neck from the side, claws extended to tear her throat out in an explosion of blood. When she collapsed on the ground at his feet, he didn't opt to crush her spine with a heelstamp, just to be sure. It all just happened, power and speed and endless hours of training moving him in exactly the way he needed to move to destroy his opponent.

The pile of hacked meat that had been Mirai hit the ground with a wet squelch and a small splash of blood. He eyed it consideringly for a moment, then knelt and sliced off a section of her tunic so that he could clean the blood off his claws as he walked back to where Ken was attempting to crawl away with only one working arm and one working leg. The other ninja was babbling something, but Hazō was too far away to make out the words, despite standing over his prey. The babbling became annoying so he kicked the babbler in the jaw to make him be quiet.

"Now," Hazō said, kneeling down with a smile, "I think I made you a promise."

o-o-o-o​

The world shattered as Hazō's adoptive mother shook him out of his dream. "Come on," she said. "Jiraiya's halfway through breakfast. You need to get ready to leave."

Hazō looked around groggily, a thundering pain in his head. "Where...what...huh?"

Mari-sensei sat back on her heels, chuckling. "I told you not to try to keep up with Chōji on the sake last night," she said. She held out a waterskin. "Drink this, it'll help. Sage knows I've had enough hangovers to know the cures. Drink it, grab a fast bath, eat. You won't want the food but eat it anyway. Now come on, let's go! Up and at 'em! Time to show those loser Chūnin Exam people what the Gōketsu can do!"

Hazō's yawn concealed the teeth-bared grin. Terrifying as the dream had been, it had shown him exactly what the Gōketsu could do. The Chūnin Exams weren't going to know what hit them.

 

[Velorien]

Chapter 50 v2: The Legend of the Nude Bomber​

Mechanics and original Chapter 50 by @eaglejarl. Revisions by Velorien.

Spoiler: mechanics and dice

Circumstances and Setup

There are 16 village ninja and 34 tapirs in this fight, plus 6 members of Team Uplift. For convenience, all the enemies are identical and will be rolled for in groups where appropriate. Also, we haven't finalized rules for the Explosion Master style; this update does a straight translation from the old rules but it might end up working differently. Same for Substitution—I'm using the rules that are currently under discussion among the QMs, which are that Substitution requires a Supplemental Action, adds ½ its level to your Athletics roll for dodging, and leaves you with a -2 CM on all skills until your next initiative due to being slightly off balance and disoriented upon arrival.

I'm assuming everyone on Team Uplift has 4 FP available and all the enemies only have 2 because they live much more sheltered lives. Finally, chakra boost and 4dF are already factored into all rolls.

This takes place in a large area with a lot of available zones. All zones have border 0 unless otherwise stated.

• The cave. Border: 3 (narrow / twisty entryway, traps)
• The main zone: The region immediately around the cave mouth. Team Uplift starts here.
• 8 zones arranged in a ring around the main zone. Border 2 after the traps go off, due to broken ground
• 16 zones in a ring around the zones in previous bullet point. Village ninja and tapirs start here.

Stats

Based on what was in the original update and some rough guessing about how that would translate, Team Uplift will have the following stats for this update.

Hazō:
Alertness 15
Athletics 15
Taijutsu: 23
Substitution 8

Akane
Alertness 15
Athletics 15
Taijutsu: 21
Substitution 10

Keiko
Alertness 15
Athletics 15
Ranged: 27
Substitution 8

Noburi
Alertness 15
Athletics 15
Taijutsu: 22
Substitution 8

First round, the village ninja and tapirs burn both Supplemental actions to cross through the outer two zones and into the main zone. In the process they set off all the traps.

Do the village ninja dodge the traps?

[looks at numbers, realizes the answer is not in doubt]

Yep, they dodge the traps handily, but the suddenly-appearing zone border leaves them stuck where they are unless they choose to Sprint. I'm ruling that, although they aren't harmed by the traps, the various barriers and explosions shatter their earth wave, thereby costing them the initiative and separating them. During this "debuff round", the village ninja are a bit scrambled so both they and the tapirs act in small groups instead of coordinating effectively.

Initiative

NB: I'm using identical stats for all the village ninja, but in practice some of them would have slightly higher or lower numbers. Rather than put all of them in one giant block I'm spreading them through the initiative order. For the first round all the tapirs and village nin go first due to the massive speed boost of their earth-surfing technique that allows them to close into range faster than you can react. After that the order will be:

• Kagome
• Mari
• Hazō
• 2 Village Ninja
• Keiko
• Akane
• 8 Village Ninja
• Noburi
• 6 Village Ninja

There are 5 groups of tapirs of 12, 8, 3, 3, 3 members. Each ninja can control up to 4 tapirs at a time as a Standard action. Ninja can work together to coordinate a larger group. The groups will be spread out over several zones so some effort must be spent to gather them up again. On the first round the tapirs will act of their own accord because they're frightened by all the traps going off and are instinctively lashing out. After that they will only act under direction.

12 Tapirs, Earthquake: 15
For simplicity, the kids all boost by 2 dice as a reasonable compromise between conserving chakra and avoiding the ground shaking.
Akane: 11. Burns first FP for a reroll
Akane: 5. Burns second FP for a reroll
Akane: 20
Keiko: 23
Noburi: 17
Hazō: 14
Mari: ?
Kagome: ?

Hazō is on the ground; he has the Aspects 'Prone' and 'Shaken, Not Stirred'. All enemies have a tag on each of those Aspects. Additionally, Hazō has a -2 on gross physical skills (e.g. Athletics + most combat skills).

8 Tapirs, Earthquake: 15
Again, the kids all boost by 2 dice.
Akane: 14
Keiko: 9 Burns first FP for a reroll
Keiko: 14
Noburi: 23
Mari: ?
Kagome: ?

Akane, Keiko, and Hazō are all down with the 'Prone' and 'Shaken, Not Stirred' Aspects, as well as a -2 CM on gross physical skills. All enemies have tags on both Aspects. (They don't stack, so Hazō has only one of each and only a -2 CM.)

3 Tapirs, Earth Crush vs Hazō: 7
Hazō (-2 CM): 10

3 Tapirs, Earth Crush vs Mari: 0
Mari is fine

3 Tapirs, Earth Crush vs Noburi: 9
Noburi: 18

The tapirs aren't too bothered by the disruption of the earth-surfing jutsu—they're low-to-the-ground quadrupeds—but the ninja have to make an Athletics check vs TN 20 to avoid being tumbled around and losing their actions this turn. I'm rolling in groups for simplicity.

Village Ninja 1-4: 15 They lose their actions
Village Ninja 5-8: 18 They lose their actions
Village Ninja 9-12: 18 They lose their actions
Village Ninja 13-16: 24 All good!

2 Village Ninja, Thrown Weapons vs Akane: 19
Akane Athletics (-2 CM): 17 w/Substitute
Akane takes 1 stress from each of the two attacks. She has a 3-box track so she's fine.

1 Village Ninja, Thrown Weapons vs Keiko: 15
Keiko Athletics(-2 CM): 4 Burns second FP for reroll
Keiko Athletics (-2 CM, Substitutes): 20

1 Village Ninja, Thrown Weapons vs Hazō: 21
Hazō Athletics (-2 CM, Substitutes): 21
Hazō takes 1 stress on his 3-box track.

Village Ninja, notice Kagome Substitute behind them: 15
Kagome, Stealth: 21

Kagome, Omnidirectional-Boom-Squash Technique: 29 Burn first FP to reroll!
Kagome, Omnidirectional-Boom-Squash Technique: 38
This is an extremely simple technique: run up close to the enemy and then detonate your blast harness. It's an opposed Athletics check to see if they can stay out of range. He's dealing with the -2 CM for using Substitution.

8 Village Ninja in range: 22 (including Substitution)
Boom! Headshot! And lung shot, and spleen shot, and…. The VN take 6 stress from the roll + 4 because the explosives are Weapon:4, for a total of 10 shifts. They all have 3-box tracks, so they explode into a fine red mist.

4 tapirs in range: 12
More gibs!

Mari:

• Supplemental: Substitute to Kagome (-2 CM on physical skills)
• Standard: Taijutsu, Maneuver, place the "Come-Along Hold" Aspect on Kagome: 32
• Kagome: 15

Kagome and Mari are in one of the 'broken ground' zones (Border: 2), so they don't have the move to get back to the main zone, much less into the cave.

Hazō, Sprint (SDC, Athletics + 4 boost): 1 + floor(21 / 10) = 3 + 1 for Supplemental

• Burns a Supplemental action getting to his feet
• Loses the Aspects and CM from the Earthquake
• Loses the CM from Substituting
• Uses second Supplemental for an additional movement shift
• Makes a successful Sprint action into the cave

Keiko, Sprint (SDC, Athletics + 4 boost): 1 + floor(16 / 10) = 2 + 1 for Supplemental

• Burns a Supplemental action getting to her feet
• Loses the Aspects and CM from the Earthquake
• Loses the CM from Substituting
• Uses second Supplemental for an additional movement shift
• Makes a Sprint action towards the cave. Does not have enough shifts—maybe she is a little more scrambled up from the Earthquake and it takes her longer to get to her feet?

Akane, Sprint (SDC, Athletics + 4 boost): 1 + floor(16 / 10) = 2 + 1 for Supplemental
Same as Keiko, above

Noburi, Water Clone

• Makes 2 clones

Noburi's 2 clones: Wait to see if they can substitute any friendly out of harm's way

Round 2!

Kagome, Sprint (SDC, Athletics + boost): 1 + floor (37 / 10) + 2 Supplemental

• Struggle briefly against Mari then give in
• Sprint + 2 Supplemental actions back into the cave

Mari:

• Supplemental: Substitute to Keiko/Akane (-2 CM on physical skills)
• Standard: Wind Wall (Block vs Ranged Weapons: 31)
• Supplemental: Substitute with Noburi so he is behind the Wind Wall and Mari isn't

2 Village Ninja, Thrown Weapons vs Akane: Total failure. The wall stops their attacks cold

Keiko, Sprint into cave: Auto success after partial success last round

Akane, Sprint into cave: Auto success after partial success last round

8 Village Ninja: Are dead. Kagome killed them

Noburi, Sprint into cave: 1 + floor(12/10) + 2 Supplemental: Success!

6 Village Ninja: Disperse to gather all the tapirs together

Round 3:

Mari: Sprint into cave

Battle ends

"Sage's assorted body parts, no," Hazō groaned. He'd already forsworn ever being in the same building as alcohol again. What more did the universe want from him?

No, stupid question. The universe wanted him to suffer. Not that this had ever been in any doubt, but right now, Hazō could sense its focused malice with utter clarity. He recognised the environment in his dream—a night even the Yamanaka wouldn't be able to make him forget. If his brain had to force him to relive some random slice of his past, why couldn't it have been the day they spent resting on the seashore not long before their quest for Keiko's scroll, finally acting like normal kids their age by playing board games and blowing up tentacle monsters, or the day he confessed his feelings to Akane, or… well, anything not awful?

Still, he wasn't the same panicking genin he'd been last time round. He remembered the team's bad luck and grievous tactical errors, and the way they'd not so much brushed against death as gripped its bony hands and pulled it into a frantic waltz. This time, he'd—

The tapirs came into view, riding their tsunami of roiling earth and stone with the cool, implacable pride of a daimyo on his litter. Their riders maintained a hunter's poise, readying their weapons with no apparent concern for the fact that they were surfing an elemental force of destruction unlike anything Hazō had ever seen in human hands.

The sight was no less impactful for being a memory. Rather, it was worse. This time round, Hazō had the experience to recognise the tapirs' perfect coordination, and the level of training implicit in the enemy's body language. Detail by detail, Hazō's mind filled with a clamour of impending doom that overwhelmed the lucidity of his dream and yanked him back down into the past.

Terror slowed the world around Hazō to a molasses trickle. He was pouring chakra into his muscles, accelerating his movements until they were so fast his body was on the edge of tearing itself apart under the strain. Even so, the Mountain assault force was faster, so much faster that he couldn't even react before they were on top of him. Their wave rose higher and higher, tumbling forward like an avalanche that would surely crush him—

There is a saying, taught to every student in the Mist Academy of the Ninja Arts, about giving a sealmaster time to prepare: Don't.

The Mountain assault force hit the outer edge of the team's prepared defences. Akane's first layer of mechanical traps, intended to warn off curious toddlers, threw blunted kunai, paintbombs, and stinkbombs everywhere. The second layer fired real weapons that forced the Mountain-nin and their tapirs to dodge around on the earth wave. Then it was time for Kagome's work and things got serious.

Nigh-immovable granite Multiple Earth Walls, rendered invulnerable through application of a Five-Seal Barrier, were used as anchor points for vertical Force Wall seals that interrupted movement. Chakra tripwires activated, detonating explosives or triggering angled Force Walls that would cut into anyone that touched them. Massive implosion bombs went off everywhere. Claymore mines made from shaped-charge explosives piled with broken kunai fragments shredded everything around them.

The earth wave that the attackers were riding was blown apart, yanking the speed boost out from under the assault force. They tumbled everywhere, momentarily separated and shaken.

"Shell White! Meet Alpha!" Mari-sensei yelled, beginning to flick through the hand seals for the Water Clone.

The Shell Game was the basis for many of the plans Mari-sensei had drilled into them. It meant that she and Noburi were to spam clones and have the clones substitute to move the team around the field before the enemy could get a lock on them. Whenever they weren't occupied with that, the clones were to transform so that the enemy couldn't tell where the real members of the team were. There were a ton of variations on the Shell Game that specified rules of engagement and tactical goals for different team members.

"Shell White" was, in Hazō's opinion, the single most frustrating plan that Mari -sensei had taught them. It meant "retreat, do not engage the enemy under any circumstances, if forced to engage use absolute minimum force, killing and/or permanent damage to enemy is expressly forbidden". He would really, really prefer it if she had called Shell Black right now. It would have made all this a lot easier. Crap, even Shell Yellow—retreat, do not engage unless rescuing a teammate, non-lethal but maiming is allowed—would have been okay. Shell White under these circumstances, though? Madness.

Still, Mari-sensei had tactical command and the middle of combat was not the time to be second-guessing her orders. He would run for it and meet the rest of the team at Point Alpha, a fallen tree deep in the woods—presumably she didn't want to return to the cave for fear that they'd be sealed in. He wasn't too sanguine about outrunning the unbelievable speed that the Mountain-nin and their tapirs got when dirt-surfing, but Shell Game would make it hard for the enemy to know which copies of the team were real, and they would all be scattering anyway. Unless the enemy could instantly guess right as to who they should attack, the team would probably be able to break contact before the enemy could target them.

I remember what happens next.

He'd barely gone three steps when the very earth beneath his feet went crazy, spasming and bucking like a terrified horse. This time, though, he was ready, launching himself into the air before the tremors could destabilise his footing. Behind him, Mari-sensei cursed as the maddened bucking of the ground forced her to spread her arms for balance, ruining the technique she'd been casting.

But having jumped too soon, he came down too soon as well. Instead of stumbling forward, out of the danger zone, he found himself at the epicentre as a series of low waves of rock erupted out of the ground around him and slammed down again. He tried to dive out of the way, but one wave managed to catch his foot on the way out, turning his controlled evasion into a flailing slam into the ground that knocked the breath out of him.

The earth kept shaking when it should have stopped, Hazō's fall spurring the tapirs on to greater aggression. Behind him, he heard a pair of female screams and he guessed that Akane and Keiko had gone down as well, leaving fully half the team at the enemy's mercy.

Fear for his teammates overwhelmed his rising consciousness once again. He found it in himself to glance back as he staggered to his feet, and almost wished he hadn't.

Keiko rolled out nimbly out of the way as a kunai impacted the ground where her head had been a moment ago. Akane was less lucky. A shuriken slashed across her back as she began to rise, leaving a shallow but—Hazō knew from experience—very painful cut. She moved to evade another attack—

A stab of agony.

Hazō cursed himself as his shoulder burned. Akane could take care of herself—she was every bit the fighter he was, maybe even more—and if he let himself get distracted he could end up putting all their lives in danger. As he picked himself up and ran, he could only thank whatever power watched over fools and small children that the blade hadn't severed any muscles.

Behind him, there was another grunt of pain from Akane. Everything in his soul screamed at Hazō to go back and save his team, but Shell White was very clear: retreat, do not engage under any circumstances. Rescuing people was what Mari-sensei and her eventual clones were there for. He forced himself to run away, skimming across the ground like an arrow from the bow. The girls were on their feet; they'd substitute with one of the... no, there weren't any clones yet. Oh shit. No, it was OK, there were boulders set up throughout the area as substitution targets, they could escape no problem, it would be fine, all they had to do was sub—

"DIE, YOU STINKING STINKERS!"

Hazō looked over his shoulder and felt his heart sink. Apparently, Kagome-sensei had decided that Shell White could go kiss a goat.

Why couldn't my ripple effect have done something about him?

The sealmaster substituted with a small boulder that rested in the ground behind the left flank of the enemy's line. Before they could react he triggered his blast harness; forty separate shaped charges erupted in all directions, blowing his clothes off and splashing every ninja and tapir within ten meters outwards as a slurry of blood and meat fragments. Kagome-sensei was left wearing nothing but a pair of boxers and two wooden rings that held small blocks to his palms.

The survivors, who could have finished him off on the spot, instead just stood there painted with the remains of their comrades. They gazed wordlessly at the man who, they must have now realised, had been the one to destroy their ultimate weapon and scatter their assault force. The man who had just appeared out of nowhere in their midst and erased half of that force with a single gesture. The man who, without weapons, equipment or even clothing, still had the leisurely confidence to face off against all eight of them with a cavalier smirk on his face. It was a scene out of legend.

Before the enemy ninja could decide whether to fight or flee, or more importantly realise that Kagome-sensei was merely stunned from his own explosions, Mari-sensei substituted with a nearby boulder, grabbed him roughly, and broke into a run. For a second, the enemy ninja merely stared blankly after the five-foot woman dragging the taller-than-average man at impossible speeds as he struggled and shouted "Let me go, I'm not done with them yet!"

"Mouse Hole Black!" Mari-sensei called out, ripping the two most powerful of the explosive-seal disks off her belt and hurling them behind her at the Mountain-nin. Without the ability to aim precisely, the best she could do was interpose a brief obscuring blast of earth and stone shrapnel between her and the ninja, but even the smallest delay was worth more than diamonds when it came to a tactical retreat.

Hazō didn't need telling twice. A moment to check that Akane and Keiko were on their feet, and he was running for his life. The enemy, still focused on Mari-sensei and the much nearer girls, didn't so much as attempt to target him. He sprinted past Noburi, who gave him an "I'll catch up with you" wave, and into the cover of the cave mouth.

He choked as he looked back. Akane and Keiko must have taken too long to regain their footing—the recovered enemies were hot on their heels, and while the two girls could give any backwater ninja a run for their money, neither Keiko's flawless precision nor Akane's boundless stamina could make them faster than a hail of kunai.

Noburi was already making hand seals when Hazō ran past him, and now two water clones flowed into existence by his side. Hands in position, they stood ready to substitute somebody out of harm's way, and there was plenty of harm's way to be found.

Meanwhile, to Hazō's massive relief, Kagome-sensei had surrendered to Mari-sensei's will. Whether because of her force of personality, a belated awakening of his tactical reasoning, or the fact that he was running low on explosives, the sealmaster finally covered the remaining distance to the cave under his own steam.

That was the only good news. Behind Kagome-sensei, the enemy ninja had finally reached accurate throwing range. Hazō watched the two at the front raise their kunai, aiming for Akane, and realised with numb horror that Noburi's water clones weren't going to react in time. He started to shout a useless warning—

"Wind Element: Wind Wall!"

The flying kunai were cast away like leaves in a gale. The air behind the fleeing girls rippled and warped as if trying to tear itself apart, distorting the view of the Mountain-nin's rage-filled faces as Mari-sensei completed her technique.

By the time the enemy managed to cross the wall and resume throwing, the rest of the team was already safe in the cave. Mari-sensei opened her mouth to give instructions—

"Glwbluh!"

Hazō spit out a mouthful of water as he sat bolt upright in his bed.

Keiko, standing next to the bed, looked completely unapologetic.

"Keiko, did you just dump a bucket of cold water on me?!"

"Indeed," Keiko said calmly. "I commend your powers of situational analysis."

"Why?!"

"You are late for breakfast. I had originally intended to merely call your name, and if that proved insufficient, to use progressively more intrusive approaches until one was successful. However, when I heard you muttering something about 'naked Kagome-sensei', I decided that emergency measures were called for in order to save you from yourself."

"It wasn't like that," Hazō muttered dazedly. "He was surrounded by all these men, and then Mari-sensei grabbed him by the—"

"Hazō," Keiko interrupted, "I respect your right to keep your sexual fantasies private, and I am prepared to violently incapacitate you in order to continue to respect it."

"But I was only—"

"Final warning."

Hazō sighed and dragged himself out of his soaking wet bed, details of the dream already fading from his mind.

 

[eaglejarl]

Interlude: Chosen for the Grave, Part 5​

Oli wandered down the main boulevard of the Village Hidden in the Leaves, humming to himself, enjoying the warm sunlight and the briskness of the air, and studiously ignoring the masked ANBU agents who were trailing along a dozen or so yards behind him. They were being stealthy in exactly the same way that actors in a play whisper: more of a winking suggestion than an actuality. They could have been more noticeable, but only by playing tubas and waving torches.

Of course, most likely they were simply the distraction and there was at least one more who was actually being sneaky. Still.

He absentmindedly reached into his pocket for his phone to check the time, then remembered that his phone was now a somewhat fragile brick tucked into the pocket of a backpack that was immured somewhere in the depths of Hokage Tower. And this world lacked any chronometer more precise than a water clock. He glanced up at the sun in an attempt to estimate, but gave it up as a bad job. Eh, the ANBU would come get him when it was time for his meeting.

He couldn't stop grinning at the thought. Lord Hokage had actually raised both eyebrows when told that Oli's "special bloodline" permitted him to increase a person's skills, and more.

He glanced at the rough and very incomplete map of the village that he'd been given, verified that he was well away from all of the (many) things marked 'classified, do not approach' and then turned down the next side street. It seemed to be the quickest way to the nearest of the 'good restaurant' marks.

Three side streets, two turns, and one bit of backtracking later, he found himself standing in front of his destination and across the street from the Leaf Public Library. He stopped, torn between the need to quiet his grumbling stomach and the need to see the library that had been such a hilariously brilliant, creative, inventive, and generally amazing part of Earl's worldbuilding. Oli had told him at the time just how excellent the idea was, but of course Earl had been his usual humble self about it. Earl was one of those guys who never bragged at all, not even a tiny bit. Yep. Definitely.

His stomach growled again, reminding him that it was well past lunchtime by now and he hadn't actually eaten since coming to this world too many hours ago. He glanced at the library, then glanced at the door of the cafe. Then glanced at the library. Finally, he shook his head and headed to the cafe. The library would be there later.

The cafe had outdoor seating, so as soon as he'd placed his order Oli went back out and settled into one of the obviously hand-made wooden chairs scattered around tables of various sizes. Either the city was full of vandals or the owners had a relaxed policy towards graffiti because the table he plonked himself down at was covered almost edge to edge in years worth of such gems as 'Akinari + Itsumi' and 'Wolves 4ever!' There were no tablecloths, but the tables were well-cared for, nicks and splinters sanded away and thoroughly varnished.

An instant after he sat down, Oli suddenly felt his stomach drop as he realized the critical flaw in his lunch plans: He had no money.

Hm.

"Excuse me, sir," he said to the stout, red-faced man at the next table. "I'm new to Leaf and not familiar with the currency. Which coins are which?"

"Hm?" the fellow asked, looking up from his eggs and raising walrus-like eyebrows. "New to Leaf? Where are you from?"

Oli hesitated. "I'm actually not sure if I'm allowed to say," he said. He shrugged, embarrassed. "A long ways off? I'm Oli, by the way." He held out his hand to shake, then immediately withdrew it and bowed. "Sorry, different customs."

"Hm," the other man said, eyeing him dubiously for a moment before offering a polite bow that reached only as far as the neck, all the while looking Oli up and down. "You do look exotic, that's for sure. Never seen anyone so pale who wasn't at death's door. I'm Raizō; carpenter, my shop's just down the way." He shrugged and reached into his pocket, spreading a handful of change across the table. "Anyway, these ones here are one ryō, these are five, ten, and fifty."

"May I?" Oli asked, holding out a hand.

"Sure." Raizō dropped the coins into Oli's hand without concern.

Oli studied the coins for a moment, then casually put them in his pocket. The walrus-eyebrows shot up at that.

"I'd like those back," Raizō said acerbically.

"One sec," Oli said, quickly flipping through the tabs on the invisible spreadsheet that described himself. His face split in a grin when he got to the 'Inventory' section and saw the notations:

• Coin, 1 ryō: 1
• Coin, 5 ryō: 1
• Coin, 10 ryō: 1
• Coin, 50 ryō: 1

"Uparrow, uparrow, uparrow," Oli singsonged to himself quietly, tapping quickly on the button to increment the number of each type of coin. He got them up to half a dozen before pulling out the originals and handing them back. He was careful to keep one eye on his inventory screen as he did so to make sure the newly-created money didn't vanish. He was reassured to find that they didn't, and a discreet pocket-check showed that there were actual physical coins there.

"Thanks," he said, smiling at Raizō. "I really appreciate it; I was afraid to buy anything. May I buy your lunch as a thank you?"

The red face split in a smile that revealed the primitive state of Elemental Nations dentistry. "Why thank you, young man," Raizō said genially. "That's very generous of you, let me tell you."

"Here you are," Oli said, pulling a few of his brand-new fifty ryō coins out and setting them on the table. "So, tell me about Leaf. Are you from here originally?"

"Absolutely," the older man said with pride. "Blessed by the Sage, let me tell you. No place in the world that's richer, safer, or more full of opportunity. Not like those other ninja villages, let me tell you—why, in Mist they keep their civilians chained up whenever they aren't working!" He shuddered, jowls flopping as he did. "No, I thank the Sage every day to have born in Leaf, let me tell you. Why, just last week...."

Oli settled in to listen with one ear, while most of his attention was on looking around for the waitress who was supposed to be bringing his food. Dangit, he was hungry!

o-o-o-o​

The waiting room for the (self-styled) world's greatest sealmaster was surprisingly spartan, not much biger than a walk-in closet, equipped only with two uncomfortable chairs and nothing else. Oli's escort, the ever-glowering Bull, stood against the wall across from him, the faceless animal mask not concealing the disapproval and suspicion that he was directing at the extradimensional visitor.

Oli distracted himself by browsing through the man's character sheet.

​

Name: Hisakawa Hayato​

Alias: Bull​

Age: 28​

Rank: jōnin (ANBU)​

Village: Leaf​

Clan: civilian-born​

Elements: fire (complete), lightning (complete), air (257/1000)​

Chakra: 400/400​

Talent: 90%​

Total XP: 24,617​

Unspent XP: 115​

High Concept: Junkyard Dog​

​

​

Hayato was the son of a tanner and his wife who lived two day's travel from Leaf across a dangerously poorly-maintained dirt track. His father, Kazuki, was an angry man who felt that life had cheated him of his due. He often took this anger out on his wife and son, both verbally and physically. Hayato's mother, Yoko, died in childbirth when Hayato was six, leaving the boy alone with his father. Fortunately, a Leaf sensor-nin passed by when Hayato was eight and noticed the boy's powerful chakra system. She approached Kazuki about training the boy. At first the tanner was reluctant, but he eventually sold his son into what he thought would be a short and brutal military life for the munificent price of two hundred ryō.​

​

At first, Hayato struggled to fit in at the Academy. He often got in fights, he was sullen, and he alienated many of his classmates and instructors. This changed when Sarutobi Hiruzen noticed him. The God of Shinobi had long made a point of visiting the Academy regularly, to both inspire and bond with the next generation of ninja. He took Hayato out of class for a picnic atop the Hokage Monument, where he drew the young man out and then simply listened. These lunches because a semi-regular thing whenever Hiruzen could find the time. Sometimes Hiruzen would talk, sharing his thoughts about the Will of Fire and what he wanted for the future of the village. Sometimes he would simply listen, nodding sympathetically as Hayato talked about his latest tribulations.​

​

Hayato had never had an authority figure show him such concern and respect. He threw himself into his training, afraid that if he didn't do well Hiruzen would lose interest in him. He even worked to socialize himself, recognizing the way Hiruzen seemed saddened every time Hayato got in another fight or snarled at a teacher.​

​

Well over a decade later, Hayato is one of the most fanatically loyal ninja in Konoha. He is more than willing to die for the Hokage and, by extension, for the village. He holds himself to strict standards of behavior and honor...not because he personally cares, but because he believes that do do otherwise would cost him the respect of his idol. His significant talent is coupled to a desperate need to prove himself that has not faded since his first day at the Academy. He is short-tempered by nature and masks it by being silent most of the time.​

The backstory went on, but at that point the door to the inner office opened. Oli quickly waved the spreadsheet away and jumped to his feet, bowing deeply to the living legend who stood in the doorway.

Jiraiya was just as Oli had imagined him: broad-shouldered, deep-chested, dressed in comfortable and only slightly formal robes, with streaks of red and white paint on his face and a massive forehead protector that covered half his head. There was a dignity about him and also a sense of...not menace, but simply the knowledge that he could crush you like a bug so there wasn't really any need to prove it.

"Oli, I believe it was?" he asked, gesturing into the office. "Thank you, Bull," he said to the ANBU. "You can take a break. I'm heading back to HQ after this and I can escort him."

"Yes, sir," replied the masked jōnin. He bowed deeply, then vanished.

"So, what can I do for you, kid?" Jiraiya said, dropping into a chair with a tired sigh. "Sensei told me where you lot are from and something about your abilities, but give me the rundown anyway."

"Yes, sir," Oli said, pausing to organize his thoughts. The room was distracting; the walls were entirely covered in bookshelves packed tight with scrolls, books, and stacks of paper covered in messy scribblings and wedged in every which way. A few knickknacks stood sentry over the papers, each one unique and probably with a story behind it.

The desk was a squat wooden monster that had been buried under an avalanche of paper, yet the mess existed only on the left side: everything in the center of the desk and on the right side was neatly organized and precise.

There were no windows, but the ceiling was covered in glued-on pieces of paper from which shone a reasonable approximation of bright sunlight.

"Um," Oli said, pulling his eyes and attention back and forcing him to focus as he realized he'd been staring around instead of answering the Sannin's question. "So, we're from another world and we each have some special abilities. Val knows, as far as we can tell, every jutsu that exists, and—"

Jiraiya snorted.

"No, really, sir. Lord Hokage quizzed him, naming what I assume were more and more obscure jutsu and Val was able to show the handseals for all of them as well as describe the effects."

"Huh."

Oli waited but no more was forthcoming so he went back to what he'd been saying. "Anyway, Val knows all the jutsu and Earl knows all the sealing—"

"Excuse me?" The black eyes were narrowed and the casual slouch was suddenly much less casual.

"Um...you should probably talk to him about it, sir," Oli said quickly. "I don't know anything about seals so I couldn't tell you how much he actually knows. Anyway, um, I have these...well...my ability is a little more complicated. I can see things about people and even change things within certain limits. Increase or decrease skills and attributes, that sort of thing."

Jiraiya went from 'not-so-casual slouch' to 'leaning forward threateningly' without passing through the intervening space.

"You can what?" He studied Oli carefully. "Have you done this to anyone in Leaf?"

Oli swallowed nervously. "No, sir," he said. "I may have created some money, though."

Jiraiya blinked. "You created money?"

"Yes, sir." Oli reached into his pocket slowly and pulled out a handful of change, turning the pocket inside out to prove that it was empty. He showed his hand likewise empty, front and back with fingers spread wide, then picked up one of the one-ryō coins and tucked it back in the pocket. A few taps on his character sheet and suddenly his pocket was bulgingly full of one-ryō coins, which he dumped on the desk beside the rest.

Jiraiya watched the trick with curious consideration, the menace apparently forgotten. He reached out and scooped up a handful of the coins, studying them carefully. "All slightly different," he mused. He rapped one sharply against the table, head cocked to listen to the sound. "Not a henge product, weight is right. Interesting." He paused, thinking. "Assuming you can do this with any currency, we should send you to Mist. A little hyperinflation would be just the thing to get them out of our hair for a few years."

Oli blinked. That was way more sophisticated economic theory than he would have expected in the Chosen for the Grave feudal-esque society.

"I can do a lot more than that, sir," Oli said carefully. "Like I said, I can see information about people in terms of raw numbers, and I can adjust those numbers up or down. Make people stronger, faster, that kind of thing. I haven't done it to anyone from Leaf, but I did it to me, Earl, and Valerian. Gave us all chakra, increased our chakra control, a few other things. The most important thing, though, is that there's a statistic called 'Talent'. I haven't tried touching it yet, but I'm pretty sure that I can make all the Leaf ninja super-geniuses."

Jiraiya stared.

 

[Velorien]

Interlude: Chosen for the Grave, Part 6​

Insofar as Oli had had any plans for his afternoon, these were not they. He had been enjoying talking to Jiraiya. It wasn't every day you got to reveal your amazing superpowers to a nearly-head-of-state who was prepared to sell his soul to have them used on his behalf. Sure, Val got all the best parts of being a ninja, and Earl got… actually, Oli wasn't sure what Earl got, on a practical level, but he had a feeling it would somehow end up as the power to freely rewrite reality, from quarks to supergiants. But here and now, Oli was the one who could transform geopolitics with the tap of a finger, and he wanted to enjoy the experience while it lasted.

Instead, Jiraiya had been called away to do whatever it was that spymasters did (they really should have fleshed more of this stuff out while they had the chance), and Oli had been promptly whisked away elsewhere. And this time, his interlocutor was not going to be won over with promises of military power through stat boosts.

"I am given to understand," one of the most dangerous men in the world said, "that you are our creator."

Nara Shikaku was exactly as the anime portrayed him, except that his gaze was much sharper, and his body language less that of a weary middle-aged man and more that of a panther resting before its next hunt. Unlike Jiraiya, he didn't feel threatening. He felt like someone who could erase you from existence without ever bothering to consider you an enemy.

"You could say that," Oli said hesitantly, wondering if Shikaku was about to hold him responsible for the existence of evil, or worse, of Maito Gai. "Strictly speaking, I came along later, when the majority of the worldbuilding was already done."

"It is an extraordinary claim," Shikaku said thoughtfully. "Jiraiya and the Hokage both appear to be convinced, but for my part, it would save us both a great deal of time if you could substantiate it with some verifiable piece of information that you could not otherwise possess."

That seemed fair. It was the classic question asked of time travellers, and in a sense Oli was in the same position—he had important knowledge and powers which could change the world in unimaginably vast ways, everything around him was fascinating, and at the same time he really really hoped he wasn't stuck here for good. As such, he'd predicted Shikaku's question (and wasn't that something to feel good about?) and come up with a decent answer while being escorted here by the invariably dour ANBU guards.

"There is a book in the deepest Nara vaults," he began, hoping that this was a CfG-canon statement and not one of those ideas Val and Earl batted around for fun before regaining their senses and vetoing it into oblivion. "It lists every known research pathway that is expected to lead to an existential risk, and only a handful of elders are allowed to handle it. Whenever a Nara realises that their research also has the potential for existential risk, they report it immediately, it's added to the book, and they stop. Whenever a Nara wants to conduct research in an area that they think has never been explored before, they consult the elders, who consult the book and forbid the research if they have to.

"Our players probably don't realise how many of their ideas the Nara already have in there," he added.

Shikaku frowned. "I can neither confirm nor deny that such a book exists. If it did, I would be almost one hundred percent certain that no one outside the clan was aware of its existence, and even within the clan, most of those who were would believe that was a form of oral tradition rather than a physical object.

"Supposing, then, that you are our creator, I have a number of questions for you."

"Go ahead," Oli said, suddenly aware that he was acting not only as a representative of the CfG QMs, but quite possibly of the entirety of Planet Earth.

"The first question must be 'why'."

"Why what?"

"Why does this world exist?" Shikaku clarified patiently. "What, if any, is its purpose?"

Oli considered lying, but quickly decided that if there was one man who could detect lies through body language, it would be the ninja famous for his intelligence and information processing abilities.

"Entertainment," he said uneasily. "Where I come from, this world is the setting of a fictional story."

Somehow, this did not seem to faze Shikaku in the slightest.

"What genre?" he asked immediately.

"Action, I think. You have to understand, we're not responsible for the original work. That was a man named Kishimoto. He wrote a highly popular manga—an illustrated story—for teenage readers. Then we took that work and altered it to create our own setting."

"An action story for teenage readers," Shikaku echoed. "And so is born a history of unending violence and pointless death. I assume it is set in Hidden Leaf, with a genin protagonist?"

Oli blinked. Twice. "How did you know?"

"Firstly, you arrived here and now, of all the places in the world and all points in history, and immediately oriented yourself with regard to the major players in Leaf and our geopolitical situation. Assuming finite time and intelligence, you or this Kishimoto invested some portion of those things in creating a profound Nara Clan secret that is of no relevance to the rest of the world. More broadly, you or Kishimoto made Leaf the most influential village. You had it founded by the heir of the Sage of Six Paths and you made it the origin of the village system itself, as well as the creator of such vital institutions as the Kage Summit, the Chūnin Exam and the Tailed Beast power balance. You made it stand out across the world as a beacon of civilisation. These are not the characteristics of an antagonist, nor of a mere background actor.

"Leaf has recently seen a rare crop of genin prodigies. They are of a suitable age for teenage readers to identify with, as genin they are primarily involved in small-scale battles which emphasise individual performance, and demographically they possess both the highest growth and the highest mortality rate. I could go on, but these are the some of the most salient points.

"Of course, I am guessing at the literary conventions of an alien culture. But since it appears I am correct, which of our genin is the focus of the story?"

"Uzumaki Naruto. His name is the title of the original."

"Uzumaki Naruto," Shikaku gave a faint smile. "Of course. Renowned as the son of a legendary hero, taught by the greatest experts since early childhood with the aid of an accelerated learning technique only he can truly master, and possessed of the single strongest source of power in the shinobi world. His education in politics, economics and strategy has been progressing more slowly, but one day he will be the greatest Kage that has ever lived. He displays vast variety and creativity in battle, and his position forces him to grapple with the temptations and responsibilities of power, the utopian ideals of youth versus the harsh pragmatism of reality, and the need to capitalise on that which makes him different without succumbing to alienation. I daresay I would enjoy reading such a story myself, had I the time."

"Um," Oli said. "That's not quite how it goes."

"Oh?"

Oli paused to marshal his thoughts. It had been a long while since he last watched the early episodes, though Val's regular frustrated ravings kept certain elements fresh in his mind.

"The canon Naruto's parentage is kept secret, and he is a universally bullied pariah because the older generation resents him as the Nine Tails host. He's the class clown, and he's so bad as a student that he fails his graduation exam at the Academy."

"I see," Shikaku said slowly. "Continue."

"A treacherous instructor tricks him into stealing the Hokage's secret scroll of techniques under the guise of an alternative graduation exam."

"The Hokage's secret scroll of techniques, or at least the one worthy of a definite article, is protected to the extent that even I am not cleared to know about some of the seals involved," Shikaku noted. "And you have just stated that your Naruto is less competent than a typical Academy student."

"Nevetheless, he manages to steal it."

"I assume he isn't captured and executed," Shikaku said, "since the story must continue. The first of the ANBU to find him facilitates his escape, presumably because they are corrupt and accept the scroll as personal payment. What follows is the romanticised career of a missing-nin, which I grant is also a good source of regular high-stakes combat, encounters with colourful characters and implausible dramatic plot twists."

Oli shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "Actually, the Hokage doesn't send any ANBU to recover the scroll. As far as I can remember, he sends a bunch of nameless chūnin we never see again, none of whom find Naruto in the end. And he watches Naruto using the… Telescope Technique?... but doesn't do anything else.

"Come to think of it, Val must know that technique now, and it sounds utterly broken," Oli added to himself.

"Anyway, the only one that finds Naruto is Umino Iruka."

"Shikamaru's Academy instructor?" Shikaku asked. "I suppose Naruto's as well, in context."

"Right. He's one of a very small number of people who actually has a friendly relationship with Naruto. By this point, Mizuki—the treacherous instructor—has found Naruto first, and told him about the Demon Fox. The Hokage is worried that the revelation will make Naruto use the scroll to unleash the Fox and destroy the village, though he still doesn't do anything, but Iruka risks his life to save Naruto and that makes everything OK. Then Naruto uses the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique he learned from the scroll while waiting for Mizuki, defeats Mizuki, and Iruka promotes him to genin on the spot."

"The Academy dropout learns the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique without an instructor in what I infer is a matter of hours?" Shikaku asked.

"DYK," Oli muttered.

"I beg your pardon?"

"That was a yes."

After a second's delay, Shikaku clapped his hands.

"Naruto is secretly a genius. Having deliberately failed his exams, he deceives Mizuki into deceiving him, thereby minimising his culpability for stealing the scroll. He successfully obtains the Multiple Shadow Clone Technique, which is a perfect fit for his unique advantage as the Demon Fox host, as well as providing the learning benefits to compensate for ostracism-induced inferior training. By shifting the blame fully to Mizuki, he renders himself innocent in the Hokage's eyes, ensuring that his new status as a security risk is outweighed by his extraordinary value as a prodigy who has already mastered one of Leaf's most powerful ninjutsu.

"Of course, this is all part of a greater gambit by the Hokage. He has already perceived Naruto and Mizuki's true nature and plans. He secretly reduces the defences on the scroll so that Naruto is capable of stealing it despite his overconfidence, and while he is forced to muster a response, he selects inferior shinobi and, having established Naruto's location using the Telescope Technique, dispatches them elsewhere. At the same time, he sends Iruka directly to said location. By selecting Iruka, having him battle alongside Naruto, and providing a symbolic act of goodwill and acceptance through the irregular promotion, he allays Naruto's irrational but inevitable temptation to use his new-found power for vengeance, exploits his emotional vulnerability as an outcast and lays the groundwork for a deal which will fully bind Naruto to him. In exchange for absolute loyalty, the Hokage will provide not only absolution but future preferential treatment, such as an elite instructor to take advantage of his 'newly-discovered' talent, and powerful teammates in order to further accelerate his growth. Needless to say, these are all benefits that the Hokage intends for his new rising star to have in any case.

"Now I consider it further," Shikaku went on without taking any visible time to consider it further, "it is clear that the Hokage caused or endorsed Naruto's childhood as a pariah in preparation for this incident or one like it. A kindly authority figure reaching out to a lonely orphan to offer acknowledgement of his true value, long-term emotional and material support, and protection from a court martial or worse? Why, the conspiracy practically writes itself."

Oli found himself without the power of speech.

 

[eaglejarl]

Interlude: Chosen for the Grave, Part 7​

"No!" Jiraiya shouted, leaping to his feet and away from the table with all the symbols of madness and chaos spread across it. "No, no, no, no, no! You fool, you'll destroy us all!"

I blinked.

The (cough, formerly, cough) greatest sealmaster in the world started stalking around the room, waving his hands. "Sealing does not work like that! Seals are not divisible! You need to have drains that balance out your intakes! You need modulators! Boundaries need to be sharp and strictly maintained, with no ambiguity! You can't just...just...that!" He pointed dramatically at the papers on which I'd been sketching in my attempts to explain a Universal Turing Machine.

I found myself feeling conflicted. On the one hand, I clearly knew more than the (cough, formerly, cough) greatest sealmaster in the world. On the other, newbies who think they know everything tend to cause system crashes and, since we were sortakinda living inside the computer, maybe a little humility would be a good plan. Jiraiya had drawn his first seal around the time I started going to recess; he had made major strides in the field and failed to kill himself for decades. Maybe I should respect his concerns?

Nah.

"Look, it's not a seal, okay?" I said. "It's a thought exercise. An idea, a mental tool that's useful for letting us reason about things. That's all."

He whirled on me, somehow managing to glare and roll his eyes at the same time. "'It's just a thought exercise, Jiraiya'," he simpered in a voice that I was confident had nothing in common with my own. "'Don't worry, Jiraiya. It's fine, Jiraiya. I promise I won't destroy the world, Jiraiya.'"

"Okay, now, look—" God, this was so infuriating! Why couldn't he get his head out of his medieval ass and at least try to understand what I was teaching? This was important!

"No!" Jiraiya snapped. "You look! You may think this is just a thought exercise, but you're obviously intending it as a lead-in to this new theory of sealing you were yammering on about. You assert that a Turing machine can do useful things using nothing but conditionals, repetition, storage, and retrieval. Fine. Next you're going to point out that a storage seal is a storage and retrieval mechanism and that the scroll self-modifies to display an image of its contents, thereby demonstrating that sealing is capable of retaining, retrieving, and updating information. Next you'll suggest that sealing also supports conditional statements—maybe you'll trot out the fact that it's possible to have seals that detect particular conditions, such as the Barrier Formation detecting someone walking across it, or maybe you'll just go straight to the sort of sophisticated information processing done by something like the Forbidden Individual Curse Tag, that can identify and exclude certain mental states. Finally, feeling smug and full of yourself, you'll point out that my Finger Carving Seal demonstrates that brushwork is not strictly necessary to create seals. Then you'll smile infuriatingly and say something like 'and therefore I've invented a seal that can make other seals.' Probably followed by something idiotic like 'What's the worst that could happen?' or 'hold my sake'. Right?"

I paused. "...I was actually going to start with the conditionals."

"Gaaaah!" Jiraiya threw his hands in the air. "Save me from new sealing students!"

"Hey! I'm not a new student, I know everything there is to know about sealing!"

"Oh, really?" The sealmaster of the Legendary Three had a truly magnificent sneer. "You know a lot of facts and theories that were, by your own admission, put in your head by an alien being. You have no idea where he got the information or any reason to believe that it's accurate."

I paused. "Well...I mean...he put all the ninjutsu in Val's head, and everything that Val has tried so far has worked. And I have made seals. Successfully. You saw my backpack, right? It was ruined in the flood but I'm sure you inspected it. How many seals were in there?"

"Three thousand two hundred and seventeen items that had probably been infused seals," Jiraiya said with a frown. "Plus another nine thousand seven hundred and fifty-one blanks tucked away in waterproofed storage scrolls. You must have been in that coat room for a long time."

Well, of course he knew the exact number off the top of his head.

"A while, yeah. No idea how long, though—there was no way to keep track of time. Anyway, I spent something like thirty or forty sleeps experimenting. Things blew up, I found myself smelling ochre on one occasion and on another rather memorable one I caused hair to grow out of every pore on my body—yes, even my palms, and Val and Oli already made all the jokes, so you don't have to. I burned a hole in the floor a few times...and the walls...okay, and in Val, but that was only a little bit and he deserved it for the flood and it was totally not my fault. One seal turned into a tentacle monster that either tried to eat us or aggressively cuddle us, no idea which...mistakes were made, is all I'm saying. Regardless, I got some successes too, and I eventually made all this stuff work. Those thousands of seals and seal blanks? I drew four of those by hand and manually infused twelve of them. All the rest were written and/or infused by my interpreter."

Am I a bad person because I find it hilarious to watch someone's most treasured beliefs collapse like a bad soufflé?

o-o-o-o​

"Hey, handsome," said the gorgeous, bodaciously-endowed, wickedly-smiling woman with blue-black hair and a mesh shirt that emphasized said endowments, as she walked out of the crowd and latched herself onto my lips.

My entire brain shorted out until she finally stepped back, grinning wickedly.

"Glrmph," I said, demonstrating my charm and wit to their fullest.

She laughed and looped her arm through mine, tugging me towards the door of a restaurant. "I'm—"

"Mitarashi Anko," I said, getting my mental feet under me to the extent that I could do simple logic and speech. I didn't stop going along where she led, though.

She looked surprised for a moment, then smiled in delight. "My fame precedes me! Cool."

"Former student of Orochimaru, wearer of the Cursed Heaven Seal, special jōnin of Leaf," I said, repeating the stuff that my brain was pulling up without stopping to consider if it was a good idea to be talking right now. "In my writing you're also a polyamorous bisexual complete badass who gets made team leader of two clan heirs and the son of the Fourth Hokage, but I'm not sure if that made it into this continuity." The moment that it was too late to take those words back I realized that I really should have kept them in.

She laughed again and squeezed my arm against her side. "Me, team leader for Uzumaki? I wish! Nakamura got that one nailed down tight as a drum. Nah, I've mostly been doing odd jobs and some part-time teaching at the Academy. Bored out of my skull."

"I see," I said, as we passed through the curtain of beads that was the 'door' of the cafe. I waited while the hostess fussed for a moment and then we were seated at the bar on two very-close-together stools with mugs of hot sake in our hands. I needed the time to get my hormones back in their place and my brain properly engaged.

"So," I began. "What's the plan? Did Jiraiya tell you to keep me busy while he studies my notes, are you here to get help with your cursed seal, did Sarutobi assign you as my watchdog and you thought that bubbly escort was easier than sneaky shadow, or is it simply that my manly charms have so overwhelmed you that you felt the need to seduce me post-haste?" I gestured disparagingly at my American physique, which stacked up poorly compared to the athleticism of every ninja ever. (Well, except the Akimichi, but they cheat.)

She looked at me over the rim of her mug, eyes twinkling wickedly. "Yeah, watchdog. Still, not exactly the worst assignment—tall, exotic, and rubs shoulders with powerful people? Yes, please!"

I closed my eyes and massaged my temples. She was attractive to start, with a raw sexuality that was making very inappropriate comments to my hindbrain. She knew it, too; when I had met her eyes over the mug she took a deep breath and pressed her shoulders back slightly, just to make my brain melt. Which was a little complicated; on the one hand that sort of deliberate manipulation tended to jolt me back into a more analytical frame of mind. On the other hand, she had an outrageous air about her, a complete lack of concern for propriety, expectation, and norms; it was smoking hot. 'Take a Walk on the Wild Side' started playing, very distractingly, in the back of my mind.

I sighed and opened my eyes again. "Okay, so what are we doing?"

She shrugged. "I'm easy. How about a torrid series of one-night stands that leave you ruined for all other women?"

I went back to rubbing my head. My current mental playlist was really leaning into the brass section.

"I'm flattered, but no thank you. That would feel weird," I said. "That whole 'only doing it because you were ordered to' thing makes it too creepy." It occurred to me that mild resistance probably wouldn't be sufficient to stop what was essentially a magical Navy SEAL shadow warrior and that perhaps I should trot out the big guns. "Besides, I'm old enough to be your father." Hah! There we go. Never yet seen a woman who could stay interested once you put yourself in context with her father...well, except those Game of Thrones fangirls, but that was a place I really didn't want to go.

"Old enough to be my dad, huh?" She considered my game-winning move for about a second, then came up with an overpowering counter: she shrugged. "Eh, s'all good." She must have seen my appalled look because she rolled her eyes. "Sage's brow sweat but you're uptight. Yeah, Jiraiya assigned me to keep an eye on you and make sure that you don't get in trouble or get assassinated, but he left it up to me how I did that. I could—"

"Hang on," I said, cutting in. "Go back to that part about 'assassinated' and noodle around a bit."

She raised an eyebrow. "What did you expect? Three exotic strangers who look like nothing in the Elemental Nations walk out of the Hokage's office with no one having seen them arrive in Leaf. They have no familiarity with the basics of Leaf's society or economy, yet they are important enough that they spend their time talking with the Hokage, Jiraiya, and Nara Shikaku—who, by the way, cleared his schedule to talk with one of these outlanders on zero notice. Despite all this, somehow word isn't going to get out and make other villages twitchy?"

"Well, it sounds silly when you say it like that...."

"Yeah well, I dunno what's special about you three but Jiraiya said that someone's probably going to try to whack you within the next week and I should make sure they fail. I figure that's easier if you're motivated to stick close instead of doing the civilian thing with 'oh noes, I can't stand the lack of privacy and must go off on my own like a fucking idiot.'" On the last sentence her voice became a grating falsetto and her hands flailed with exaggerated helplessness.

"Be nice, Ank— er, Mitarashi," I said. "Civilian doesn't mean stupid."

She snorted. "Says someone who has clearly never been hired for bodyguard duty. Civilians are dumb as a bag of bricks...no offense. Anyway, I find that the easiest way to keep a guy from running off in search of 'privacy'"—she made the air quotes in a way that I felt was completely unwarranted—"is to make sure he's getting his brains banged out on the regular. Which in this case is nice because you're not bad-looking for a civilian and I'm currently between partners, so win/win."

She eyed me up and down in much the way that a farmwife might eye the chickens while holding a soup recipe. "Yep," she said, licking her lips in a way that I knew perfectly well was just to mess with me, "definitely a win."

I was starting to feel a little cornered. "Look, I appreciate the need for a bodyguard and I'm totally fine to stick close. I won't give you any grief or wander off, but you don't need to—"

She put a finger on my lips in a shushing gesture that instantly washed the lust hormones out of my brain and replaced them with angry ones.

"Why are we still talking about this?" she asked. "I'm a hot female ninja and I'm in the mood. You're a straight civilian male with no attachments. I'm sure it feels weird not being the one in control but you'll get over it."

"Stop," I told her, pushing her hand aside with a glare. "I do not want you. Back off."

"Look," she said, "stop being stupid. You know it's going to happen. Sure, we could finish our drinks while you spend three or four minutes wrapping your pretty little head around the shift in your worldview and talk yourself into thinking that there's nothing wrong with us boning. Or we could just skip that crap and go have a good time." She ran her nails lightly across the back of my hand; I jerked away from her.

She rolled her eyes and sat back on her stool. "Fine," she said, resignedly. "Take your time. Hey, bartender! Get us a couple plates of dango and some fish, okay? Whatever's most expensive—I'm on an expense account." She glanced at me. "You want anything?"

"Some chicken would be good," I said, not looking at her as I took a sheet of paper and my last remaining Bic pen out of my pocket. "Teriyaki if they've got it. Whatever, just not too spicey."

"Dunno what teriyaki is, but they've got a nice sweet orange sauce. Oy, bartender! Some of the orange chicken for the uptight beanpole here."

Being the mistress of body language that she was, Anko probably managed to deduce that I was upset from the way I refused to look at her or let her see what I was drawing. She waited, giving me space, until the food arrived, and then she started picking at her fish while shooting me only occasional glances.

"So," she eventually said, speaking with elaborate casualness, "you're male, you're definitely into girls...you're not worried about a kid, are you? I'm good at the contraceptive jut—"

"Quiet."

From the corner of my eye I could see her look startled at that before breaking out into a grin. "Prickly one, aren't you? Look, sorry if I came on too strong. If you're not into sex or something, that's cool. I guess that's a thing that men can be, right?"

"Privilege of the pretty girl," I said, still not looking at her as I drew. "Never had any trouble getting a date or a lay, have you?"

"Nope. That a problem for you? You one of those guys who think girls should be all pure and helpless and never ever want to fuck?"

"Nope," I echoed, absently tucking the pen back in my pocket. I turned to face her, scratching my cheek as I offered her the paper. "Here, this is for you."

She took it automatically, her eyes tracking to the motion near my face instead of looking at what she was being handed.

Which is a mistake, when the person handing you something is a pissed-off sealmaster.

She grunted as the chakra-draining seal activated and sucked the energy out of her like arterial spray direct from the neck. She tried to let go, but the seal had frozen her muscles the instant it activated. She was able to glance back and forth between her hand and my face, but that was the extent of it. Three seconds, maybe four, and she slumped face-down on the bar.

I didn't want her smashing her nose, so I caught her head and lay it down gently. Her body was utterly flacid, arms dangling limply at her sides and her hair falling forward to cover her face. I checked her pulse with two fingers, then sat back, considering her. It was tempting to walk out, possibly with a coin tossed to the bartender and a casual 'Sorry for the mess'. On the other hand it was pretty uncool to leave a woman unconscious and helpless in public. And there was a small chance that the hypothetical assassin would decide that 'within a week' should mean 'now'. Better if I was off the street and near my assigned protector, even if she wasn't up to much in the way of protecting right now.

"Not sure if you're still conscious," I said, deciding to stick around. "First time I've actually tried that seal on a living person. Pretty sure I deactivated it before you actually blacked out, so it shouldn't be more than a few minutes before you can move again." I studied my hands, mildly surprised that they weren't glowing from the massive amount of stolen chakra that was flickering and crackling in my veins.

"Damn, that was a rush. Do you have really huge reserves or do I just have small ones?" I wondered. "Need to ask Oli if he can uparrow me a bit, but I'm pretty sure he maxed us all out. Anyway, I had something I wanted to say, what was it?...oh, right."

I leaned in close so my lips were an inch from her ear.

"Civilian doesn't mean stupid, or harmless, Anko. Next time I tell you to back off, you. Back. Off."

 

[Velorien]

Interlude: Marked for Dragons​

Arnold of the Black Ridge was an awe-inspiring titan of a man, with bulging muscles, a lantern jaw, and a smile that made women swoon. Despite being stuck as a cleric, he was the natural leader of the adventuring party, and walked at the front as he chatted to his second-in-command.

"How did you get full plate mail this early, anyway? That stuff's expensive. And I'm pretty sure there are laws against that shade of green."

"It is an ancient family heirloom," Lady Rubia the paladin said proudly. "It was first made for my ancestor Guy de la Puissance two hundred years ago. Guy was born as a humble miller's son, and at the age of—"

"Backstory bonus, gotcha," Arnold waved the explanation away, instead glancing back at the rest of the group. Whateley the warlock was still reading that seal-encrusted tome of his while periodically cackling with glee, while Kali FrozenSoul (but a humble traveller unworthy of special attention, and those skeletons marching obediently behind her were purely decorative) remained an enigma beneath the cowl of her black robe with the bloody snowflake patterns.

"Is it me," he leaned over to Lady Rubia, "or is half of our party blatantly, irredeemably evil? Were they even on the same page as us during chargen?"

"Fear not," Lady Rubia replied with what was probably a radiant smile behind her helmet's visor. "Nobody is irredeemable before the Spirit of Faith. Whateley just needs to ask his Hive Mind patron to stop whispering sanity-eroding arcane secrets to him in his sleep, and Kali needs—"

There was a meaningful cough from behind her.

"—Kali FrozenSoul needs to learn to make friends who aren't undead abominations enslaved to her will by infernal sorcery."

Even Arnold could feel the death glare being directed at Lady Rubia through the thick fabric of Kali's cowl. As the party leader, it was probably his role to find a way to placate her—

Ahhahahaha! You forgot to scout ahead, suckers! As you enter the valley, a dozen goblins spot you from the other end and charge at you, screaming and waving clubs and axes. What do you do?

Lady Rubia reacted instantly. "I'm going to find a chokepoint and pin the goblins in place. Arnold, start blessing. Whateley, you pick out their leader and hit him with your best spell, and Kali—"

"Don't worry," Whateley interrupted, "I've got this."

The party stared in horror at Whateley as he completely ignored the second-in-command's instructions and walked to the front, staring down the incoming horde with an expression of excitement that made Arnold shiver.

Whateley brandished his tome.

"Darkness."

A huge hemisphere of pure black coalesced from thin air, encasing the charging goblins. There was a cacophony of dismayed screeching and the sounds of goblins tripping over and running into things.

"Devil's Sight."

A third eye, drawn in the pulsating blue light of the Hive Mind's power, appeared on Whateley's brow as if it had always been there.

"Eldritch Blast! Eldritch Blast! Eldritch Blast! Eldritch Blast!"

Lances of pure magical power sped from Whateley's hand, striking his targets with unerring precision as if the impenetrable darkness wasn't there. By the time the hemisphere faded away, all that was left was a dozen small corpses.

What the…?! Let me see that rulebook!

Huh.

"It's an underpowered class," Kali's voice mercilessly quoted. "Only two spell slots before he has to rest, and the rest of the time he's stuck with cantrips."

"There, there," Lady Rubia patted Arnold on the shoulder with a gauntleted hand, nearly knocking him flat. Unfortunately, his finely sculpted appearance was mostly the product of a stratospheric Charisma stat. Somebody had to be the party face, and Lady Rubia already had to invest in Strength, Constitution and Wisdom, Whateley's candidacy had been unanimously vetoed, and Kali had been too smart not to take Charisma as her dump stat.

Arnold made a mental note for future battles: "Run out of healing right before you get to Whateley".

-o-​

Kali FrozenSoul, elven princess in exile, suffered through the tomfoolery of her imbecilic mortal minions in silence as she studied the goblin bodies with an expert's eye. Doubtless, the others thought her a common necromancer, a mortal graverobber with some meagre gift for the exalted arts. They could not know that she, the pinnacle of elven magical talent, had achieved such heights of mastery of the dead that her own people had cast her out in superstitious fear. Since then, she had spent centuries perfecting her craft, a martyr to her inferiors' fear of the unknown, the truth of her soul understood by none but the silent dead she raised to be her companions.

Soon, however, her torment and alienation at the hands of a cruel world would matter no more. She had a plan, a master plan developed with the aid of the most diabolical of allies, a mistress of manipulation who offered Kali FrozenSoul everything she needed and asked only for entertainment in return. The paladin and his cleric lieutenant were too blind to perceive the true depths of the darkness within her, and the warlock, while useful, was too focused on his art to realise what was to come.

"Kali?"

How could the pitiful mortals ever hope to understand her true self when they could not even remember to address her by her full name? She was no mere slip of a girl to be beckoned with one or two syllables. She was Kali FrozenSoul, last of the great necromancers of old, doomed to wander the land without hope of solace or reprieve, and if her heart was too cold to accept another's love, she would at least demand the respect she was due.

"Kali FrozenSoul?" the cleric called her, and his eyeroll earned his spirit another century of torment once the master plan was complete.

"What?" she snapped.

"Can you go over and help Whateley figure out the mechanism for that door? We're pretty sure it's magical, and I'm not proficient in Arcana."

Begrudgingly accepting the recognition of her talent, Kali FrozenSoul glided over to the warlock as he hunched over some clockwork engraved with intertwining runes.

"Have you considered my offer, mortal?" she asked in a deathly whisper.

"What?" Whateley muttered distractedly. "Oh, the betrayal? Yeah, sure, just as long as I get the Orb of Unsealing and the key to the Black Library."

Kali FrozenSoul nodded, then recalled that he couldn't see her head move beneath her cowl and also that he was facing the other way. "Of course. And I will finally possess the Sceptre of Unholy Command."

A thought occurred to her. "Leave the paladin intact if you can. With that enchanted armour, she would make an excellent death knight, and it would please me to see the self-righteous smirk on her face be twisted into a murderer's grimace."

"No promises. I don't know yet if I'm allowed to multiclass without downtime, and right now my DPR is going to have trouble with her AC and save proficiencies. My main obstacle will be avoiding MAD…"

As far as Kali FrozenSoul was concerned, that ship had long since sailed.

"Anyway, let's get back to the mechanism." Whateley turned away from her again and reached into what he called his Bag of Circumstantial Modifiers, pulling out a magnifying glass and a primer on dwarven runes.

"Now I'm ready to roll. Let me know when you've started helping."

The things Kali FrozenSoul did for absolute dominion over life and death…

-o-​

The dragon's corpse was still smouldering in the middle of the cavern. Arnold, buried beneath it, showed no signs of life, and never would. The survivors were scarcely in better shape.

Rubia drew deep, ragged breaths, clinging onto her claymore mostly by force of will. Whateley was beating the last of the flames out of his robe with his eldritch tome. Kali stared mournfully at the remains of her undead vanguard. The two casters stood side by side, as if by some arrangement, while Rubia was where she'd finished the battle, next to the fallen dragon's head.

"You have done well," Kali said in a cool, mocking voice. "It would not be unfair to say that we wouldn't have made it this far without you. Now, surrender and I promise I will grant you a swift and painless death. You cannot hope to fight two magicians in your current state."

"What?" Rubia demanded. "How can this be? Are you truly turning on me after all the battles we've fought together? All the shared conversations over mugs of bitter ale (and one glass of absinthe)? The bonds we have forged through thick and thin?"

Rubia clenched her sword more firmly. "Even so. If you thought you could slay me so easily, you would have already done so. You're injured and low on spells, while I am the one with the powers of healing. Perhaps it is you who should surrender. I promise you will receive a fair trial."

Kali considered her. A twisted smile found its way onto her face.

"No, paladin, I think you will be the one on trial."

Then she drew a dagger and plunged it into Whateley's back. There was a flash as whatever spell had been placed on it went off, and Whateley, his eyes impossibly wide with shock, collapsed bonelessly to the ground.

"Surrender, and I will allow you to heal him. Refuse, and I will deal him the final blow before I raise him once more to be my champion against you. Will the Spirit of Faith allow you to stand by and watch a friend die, I wonder?"

Rubia said nothing. Of course, Kali was right. 'To stand by and do nothing' was as antithetical to her oaths as it could get. It would betray a lineage centuries old. You couldn't be a paladin of the Spirit of Faith and let an ally die in order to save yourself, especially given that Whateley hadn't actually had a chance to betray her. He might not even have had the thought were it not for a certain corrupting influence in his life. At least this way, perhaps Kali would let him live now that he was too close to death to be any threat.

"I surrender," she said through gritted teeth.

"Swear that you will not attempt to harm me," Kali said in a voice as sweet as poisoned honey.

Rubia hesitated. She wanted to try to persuade Kali, to look for another way, but every second she wasted, Whateley drew closer to bleeding out.

"I do so swear."

Kali gave a smile as lifeless as anything she had ever created. "Good. Throw away your sword and take off your enchanted armour."

Over a period of several minutes, Rubia silently obeyed.

"Now hold up your end of the bargain," she growled.

"What bargain?" Kali asked. "My oaths are to the dead, not the living."

She stepped over Whateley's body, then raised her hands for what must have been the deadliest spell in her arsenal.

"Eldritch Blast!"

Five lances of scintillating magical energy pierced Kali's torso and limbs from behind, briefly holding her aloft before her mangled body tumbled roughly to the ground.

Whateley smirked. "A servant of the Hive Mind always has another plan."

Before he could rise from the ground, Rubia kicked him in the head, the damage sending him into unconsciousness.

"A servant of the Spirit of Faith," she replied, "only ever needs the one."

-o-​

"I kept count of your hit points!" Keiko screeched. "How could you still be alive?!"

"Death Ward," Hazō beamed. "Leaves you on one hit point when an attack would otherwise kill you."

"Death Ward is a cleric and paladin spell! You don't even have a holy symbol!"

"I took some bard levels earlier after Kagome-sensei allowed 'eerie chanting' as a form of music. College of Lore bards can learn a couple of spells from any class, plus illusions to fake high-level warlock abilities whenever you were watching."

Keiko glared. "That still makes no sense. If you had a Death Ward up at any point, it would have gone off when the dragon incapacitated you."

"I took some levels of Sorcerer too. Subtle Spell lets you cast a spell without verbal or somatic components. I used it right before you stabbed me in the back."

"You…" Keiko goggled. "You took three different caster classes? Are you insane?"

"I saw you talking to Mari-sensei before character generation," Akane explained. "There's no way she'd miss an opportunity to mess with us. And then you went for an evil character, and that sealed it. I decided to give Hazō an optimisation challenge so that by the time he started to suspect you, he had all the aces up his sleeve… just in case."

"And then after she betrayed us, you betrayed me," Hazō commented.

"Of course," Akane said. "Lady Rubia could never turn on a companion unprompted, however evil he might be. But now that Whateley is a murderer, he has to be captured and imprisoned so he can stand trial."

Keiko raised an eyebrow.

"Just obeying the laws of the land," Akane said innocently.

"You know," Noburi observed, "if you knew she was going to betray us, you could have warned me, and then I wouldn't have died when Keiko's magical support suddenly disappeared."

"That would have been metagaming," Akane said seriously. "Lady Rubia is a pure and innocent soul, and she could never have suspected that one of her comrades would turn on the group."

There was a sudden burst of applause.

"In short," Mari-sensei grinned, strolling in from where she'd been listening in the shadow of the doorway, "Whateley betrayed Kali by working with Rubia behind her back. Kali betrayed Arnold by deliberately letting him die, then betrayed Whateley by trying to kill him. Finally, Rubia betrayed Whateley by knocking him out.

"Now that's entertainment."

"So let me get this straight…" Noburi said. "Akane just subverted Mari-sensei's plan, wiped out the entire rest of the party and got sole claim to the dragon's hoard—all without rolling a single die or violating her paladin oaths."

"Yup."

Kagome got up silently from behind the GM screen. One by one, he fixed the members of the team with a meaningful gaze.

"I think we've all seen today," he said gravely, "what happens when you go around trusting people."

 

[eaglejarl]

Interlude: Chosen for the Grave, Part 9​

It's been a long time since I've duelled. (What's that you say? Fencing? No. I never 'fenced'. Fencing is an abomination before the Lord of Blades and All Things Awesome. It is a game of tag played with bendy wires by pinheads who wouldn't know a parry from a beat if you gave them a map. These numbskulls think that 'stick out your arm and charge!' is the best way to use a blade, yet have someone managed to convince the entire freakin' world and the Olympic committee that the noble and gentlemanly martial art of the Western sword should be debased into a bunch of off-balance, roll-footed, floppy-armed, poor-mannered, scruffy-looking nerf h—)

Ahem. Where was I?

Ah, yes. It's been a long time since I duelled. I still loved it. You know how I knew I loved it? Because I was freakin' amazing at it.

Phil the shadow-monster-slash-demon-thing had granted us the 'desire of our hearts'. Apparently, Mr. 'I have memorized every single panel of every single page of every single issue of Naruto there ever was and can quote page and panel on when every jutsu was ever used' Valerian had wanted to be able to use jutsu, so he got lots of chakra (I mean, not lots lots, not demon-in-my-tummy levels of lots, but still lots) and the knowledge of every jutsu there ever was in Naruto. Mr. 'give me spreadsheets or give me death!' Oli had gotten reality-warping powers the full extent of which we were still learning.

Me? Apparently I was a little more scattered than the others. The two of them were pure of heart, their game-world-relevant desires focused on a single thing and their gifts equivalently mighty. I had gotten some theoretical knowledge about seals and sealing theory and juuuust enough in the way of examples that I was able to build something that worked. Not as completely badass a gift as either of theirs, but I was sure I'd be able to leverage it into unfettered cosmic power something effective given a little time. The reason for the reduced badass quotient? My gift was divided in two. Sealing, and swords.

"Ti!" I cried, engaging in quarte against my notional opponent. "Ta!" I disengaged, shifting to sixte. "Ooo...ayyyy...LA!" Each syllable brought a change of line, a change of tempo, shifting from one guard to the next, drawing my opponent's parry and getting ahead of it, gaining time until finally their blade was completely out of position and my thrust went home!

"Ha! Take that, Ravenhurst!" I cried, stepping back en guarde and flicking the imaginary blood off my blade with casual ease. Oh no! An attack from the side!

Spinning to my left I shifted into parry prime to deflect the cowardly thrust of the six-fingered man and moulineted a neat slice across the eyes—no power behind the blow from that position, but no power needed when all you want to do is make someone bleed a little. The motions were flawless, my speed and precision greater than I'd ever earned through natural talent or actual effort. As fast and as precise as my Maestro's were in the halls of memory...the halls that I suspect Phil had plundered to forge this gift.

"Ah, Count Rugen, is it?" I sneered. "Truly sir, is such a low and cowardly strike the only way thou canst win? Ha! Have at thee!" I lunged, aiming low and then disengaging with flawless ease, the imagined sound of steel on steel in my ears as I effortlessly parried away his panicked defense. "You killed my first roommate's third cousin! Prepare to die! Ha!"

I drove him across the packed earth of Konoha Training Field #7 with ease, toying with him, beating his desperate thrusts aside and casually flickering my point around his every parry. Finally, the play grew tiresome and I thr—

Clap.

Clap.

Clap.

I stumbled, blood rushing to my face in preemptive humiliation as I turned. At the edge of the field, maybe thirty feet from where my imagined battle had led me, Mitarashi Anko leaned against the bole of a young oak, her hands still in a clap of mockery. Her light brown eyes caught mine and for a moment I felt like I was drowning.

She pushed herself upright with a twitch of her shoulder and began to undulate out onto the field, walking a slowly-tightening spiral around me. She walked it the way a duellist walks La Destreza—balanced, feet always in contact with the ground to allow for motion in any direction, facing me but body turned slightly away to reduce her target profile.

"An unusual technique," she said, her voice feline and amused. "What do you call it?"

"That was, uh...bit of a mix, actually," I said, trying to back away without making it obvious that I was backing away. "Mostly French and Italian smallsword, with a little bit of Spanish rapier thrown in." The moment the words were out of my mouth I saw the spark in her eyes, heard what I'd said, and hurried to interrupt before she could finish drawing breath. "And please don't ask me why I use such a 'small sword'. Smallsword is a specific weapon, and that sort of joke is beneath you."

"It probably will be, yes," she said. "Wasn't nice, draining all my chakra out in public like that. Very embarrassing."

I swallowed nervously. I'd come out here to be alone; after spending weeks in an overinflated closet with Val and Oli I was definitely wanting some time to stretch out without needing to worry about bumping anyone else, to take a deep breath without being reminded of the absence of showers. This training field was the farthest point from any human being that I'd been able to find here in Konoha. I had had an ANBU dogging my steps when I got here but that worthy was very conspicuously absent right now and Anko was getting steadily closer.

"Look, Mitarashi, everything I know about you says that you're a kickass ninja and an amazing person." That was stretching a lot; I didn't actually know much about her. "Can't we just be friends? Let bygones be bygones?"

"What's the matter, cutie?" she asked. "Not interested?" She smoothed her hands down her body and smirked at me, all without missing a step on that disconcerting spiral.

"You're...not my type?" I tried. "No offense? I mean, you're lovely, don't get me wrong, but I've always been more into redheads."

"Henge," she said. Between one step and the next her blue-black hair lightened to fiery crimson. I gulped. "Hm...too short, yes?" Her hair lengthened, tumbling out in a sunset wave that didn't stop until it reached the small of her back. "Oh, my, you do like it long, don't you?"

"I am really not comfortable with this," I said, backing towards the path that led back to the city. "Look, seriously. You are creeping me out right now." I shifted my posture as I moved, turning into a duellist's stance with my sword held low and in front. Casual grip, not an outright threat, but she read the intention more easily than I could read 'Good Dog, Carl'. Her smile was the amused and smug one that you wear when a toddler shakes his fist at you. Good. I wanted her to be smirking at my right hand, the hand with the sword. My left was busy palming the blast ring out of my pocket and slipping it on.

"Dear boy—"

"Not a boy!" I yelped. "Seriously, old enough to be your father, easily!"

"Dear boy," she said again, "you embarrassed me in public. Do you know what ninja do to civilians who embarrass them in public?"

"Laugh with them in good-natured amusement?"

She snorted. "Try again." Her pace was accelerating; she seemed to stutter between steps, like a visual echo that left her farther ahead than my eye expected her to be. She had cut me off from the exit and I was now forced to back farther onto the grass.

I abandoned any pretense of casualness, shifting into an upright destreza stance, blade held up in the right hand, point in line with her eyes. My left hand was open in front of my chest, ready to block or catch. I wore no arming gauntlet, so blocking a blade wasn't actually an option, but that was the position that my magically-enhanced training expected. I kept my palm down instead of out, concealing the blast ring for a last-minute surprise. My awareness expanded, distractions falling away as I readied myself to fight for real. Carranza's Great Circle drew itself in my mind's eye, the two of us on the diameter. When she stepped to my left, I matched her with a step to my right, keeping her always directly across from me.

"Look, Mitarashi," I said. (step right) "I'm very sorry" (step right) "about embarrassing" (step left to match a reverse) "you. Let me" (step right, then step long right to match changed tempo) "make it up to you. I'm a" (step left) "sealmaster, and I have a lot of unique seals, seals that no one else in the world knows." (pausing, good) "I'm happy to make some for you...just think, useful things for when you're on a mission, stuff that you could sell for mucho dinero—I mean, for a lot of money. That would be good, right? Put us square again?"

"Sounds good," she said brightly. "I'll never turn down free seals."

And then she conjured a dagger from nowhere and blurred towards me. I shrieked in fear, my arm leaping forward in a desperate stop thrust that I knew wouldn't be nearly fast eno—

o-o-o-o​

I blinked and the world was suddenly different. The field was gone. Anko was gone. My sword was gone. My clothes were gone.

Blink.

My clothes were gone?!

I was standing in the middle of the Konoha market wearing nothing but a purple loincloth that barely preserved my modesty and a coat of green paint that covered me from head to toe. Across my chest was scrawled, in large red kanji that were a little tricky to read upside-down, the words "I AM VERY SORRY FOR BEING MEAN TO MITARASHI ANKO."

I'm sure it wasn't literally every person in Konoha standing around giggling, but it was a lot of them. Little kids all the way up to grandmothers, in a ring about twenty feet away. Jiraiya right in front of me, fighting to restrain his snickers. All that was missing was my fourth-grade English teacher's voice saying 'All right, Earl, start your book report' and this would literally have been my most-recurring nightmare.

Well, okay, not the words across the chest, but the rest of it. Oh, and not Jiraiya either. Those parts were new, but I was pretty sure they would feature prominently in the future.

"She got you good," Jiraiya said, losing the battle to look solemn and sympathetic and only barely managing not to break out into gales of laughter. "That should have gotten rid of it, though. Here." He held out a robe which I quickly shrugged into and belted tight.

"What just happened?"

"You've been standing here for twenty minutes," Jiraiya said, grinning. "She got you in a genjutsu loop, and you kept doing this." He flinched, right arm thrusting forward as he shrieked in what I was sure was exaggerated terror. He dropped back into a destreza stance and stood still, calm and relaxed for a slow three count...and then flinched, right arm thrusting forward as he shrieked in what I was sure was exaggerated terror.

I glowered at him, the glower intensifying to a glare when he finally lost it and started laughing.

"Oh, Anko," I muttered. "It is on."

---

Author's Note: Back in mid-to-late 2017, @Velorien and I were talking about our experience with martial arts. He's a black belt, so he knows whereof he speaks. I've dabbled in several different unarmed styles so I've got a pool of knowledge a hundred yards wide and an inch deep. What I do know, however, is swords. I spent ten years studying classical fencing and historical swordsmanship at the Martinez Academy of Arms in New York City. If you are ever in the city with an evening to kill, stop by the salle and watch; if you've ever seen anything like it then you are in a very small club indeed. Maestro de Armas Ramon Martinez and Maestra de Armas Jeannette Acosta-Martinez are both expert martial artists and skilled scholars. Just as one example, they have reconstructed Spanish rapier fencing from manuals 400 years old, using a wide grounding in the history and arts of the time to provide background and context. Among the weapons they teach are: foil, épée, saber, smallsword, and rapier. Most of those come in at least three flavors (French, Italian, and Spanish), and occasionally the Maestro and Maestra are willing to break out the daggers. Maestro mentioned learning sword-and-cloak style from his Maître, although I never had the opportunity to learn it in turn.

Hang on, got a bit far afield there. Where was I? Ah, right. So, @Velorien and I are talking and our conversation goes something like this:

Me: Yeah, I loved duelling. I can't stand Olympic fencing, though. It's awful—no skill, no technique, just flailing around jabbing at each other. Awful. They're always off balance, they slide around, their tips are pointing somewhere off to the side instead of at their opponent, and they're way too close—they often have to pull their arm back in order to be able to poke the other person.

Velorien: You mean 'stab', right?

Me: No.

Velorien: Hm. 'Olympic athlete' and 'no skill' aren't things I usually associate with one another.

Me: Go on YouTube and google for 'Olympic fencing'. Watch 30 seconds of it and tell me what you think.

[30-ish seconds go by]

Velorien: Oh my god. I had to turn it off.

Me: See?!

 

[Velorien]

Chapter 160 v2: Opening with a Bang​

A few hours before the beginning of Panashe's mission…

"Gōketsu," Nara said slowly. "These are designs for some manner of static fortification. A static fortification, furthermore, of a style practiced by neither Leaf nor Mist, for very good reasons in each case."

"Yes," Hazō agreed with more confidence than he felt. "That is exactly what they are." The fort was a masterpiece if he said so himself, and the designs had—in their seventh iteration—received Keiko's stamp of approval. But none of that meant a thing if he couldn't convince the other teams to take up residence within its triangular walls instead of going out to hunt their enemies as they would ordinarily do.

Nara considered the designs some more.

"You have a seal you can mass-produce that fits the proctors' requirements," he concluded, "and you want a secure location in which to engage in said mass production."

He paused.

"No. Your sister signed off on this plan, and she would know better than to build herself a tomb as a means of protection. You have some secondary purpose in mind that justifies the construction of this monument to inefficient resource allocation."

Hazō nodded, choosing to ignore Nara's choice of words. "It's a challenge. It seems likely that somebody out there is going to hold a grudge against Leaf generally and the Gōketsu specifically, and they're going to come for us sooner or later. They might even try to kill us and make it look like an accident. This way, instead of letting them prepare an ambush against us wherever, we've putting up a nice big sign saying 'We're staying here and you're free to attack our poorly-thought-out defences whenever is most convenient for you'.

"The catch is that my team has Kagome certificates in trap arrays, battleground preparation, and the general art of securing a perimeter until the Sage of Six Paths himself would rather take the long way round. We once held off an elite assault force several times our number with nothing but traps and explosives. Unless the genin trying to kill us are experienced at dealing with defensive emplacements—which I doubt because, as you say, nobody uses them in the field anymore—they're not going to know what hit them."

"For a trap," Nara said, "it has one distinct weakness. Notably, this royal road leading straight to the entrance."

"That's for trading, which is the fort's other purpose. Some of the seals I make are going to be traded to other teams in exchange for their Night Lights. My version doesn't drain your chakra or have a defined time limit, so it's strictly superior."

Nara went still for a few seconds.

"It all finally falls into place," he said as he relaxed. "You will flood the market, so to speak, with seals of your own design until the proctors are unable to reject them, should they so desire, without upsetting the grading for the entire event. In that case," he swept his finger in a circle a few centimetres outside the edge of the drawing, "you will only want to clear the area up to here. Some cover needs to be preserved to facilitate the Ring of Death."

"Ring of Death?" Hazō repeated uncertainly.

"That is what we called an analogous effect in the Forest of Death in Leaf," Nara said as if it explained everything.

Sometimes it could be very annoying dealing with the Nara Clan.

"What analogous effect?" Hazō asked.

Nara looked at him as if re-evaluating him. Hazō reminded himself to stay patient with his possible future brother-in-law whose approval was an absolute precondition to the fort plan's acceptance.

"Teams with fewer seals for potential trading," Nara said, "will be waiting outside the fort's area of influence in order to ambush those returning from successful trades. With the only path of retreat being obstructed by your field of traps, such ambushes will have a particularly high rate of success. Conversely, the fact that the defending ninja are cornered will cause them to fight more desperately, increasing the level of injury on both sides.

"As the event proceeds, the amount of trade will increase, both due to word of mouth and due to chakra depletion from combat and the resulting motivation to obtain your superior seals. At the same time, the total number of teams will decrease, as some are robbed and incapacitated and others choose to leave the event early in order to avoid same. With the fort now the most reliable source of new seals, the area around it will increasingly fill with ambushers, who will prefer to fight single teams on their own prepared ground rather than assault the fort and fight multiple teams on somebody else's. Thus, the fort will be surrounded by a ring of death that steadily eliminates team after team with no violent action required on our part."

"Yes," Hazō agreed. "That is exactly what I was planning." He made a note not to mention the spirit of cooperation or ending cycles of hatred around Nara for a while.

"Of course," Nara said mildly, "this is all a purely intellectual exercise, since I doubt the other Leaf teams will consent to sacrifice any semblance of mobility or stealth in favour of remaining within this deathtrap for the entire event. Out of curiosity, however… how many seals would you be able to make?"

-o-
​

Last day of the event, morning...​

"I still think this is a preposterous idea," Hyūga Neji hissed. "I find it utterly plausible that the Mist Academy would fail to teach you basic military doctrine, but the rest of our so-called comrades have no excuse."

Noburi smiled as he watched a water clone weave through one of the twelve intertwined and ridiculously complicated safe routes Shikamaru had plotted through the trap array.

"If you were any saltier, Hyūga, we'd send you to kiss the enemy kunoichi to make them die of instant dehydration."

He waited for Hyūga to open his mouth.

"Actually, no, stupid thought," Noburi interrupted the interruption. "That would require the existence of girls willing to kiss you.

"The fact is: Hazō's fort idea has worked. We've got a regular stream of trades going on, nobody's tried to take on our badass defences, and Hazō's cranking out Party Trick seals like he's been told to create a festive atmosphere for Jiraiya and the Mizukage's wedding celebration."

"And I suppose you think the proctors will look at this insanity and decide that a pack of foreign genin who don't even understand the fundamentals of shinobi warfare are worthy of chūnin promotion purely because they've found a single rules exploit? I can see where the concept might be alien to the likes of you, Wakahisa, but a ninja does need to have some skills other than cheating. If anyone had actually listened to me..."

Noburi rolled his eyes. "Just suck it up and admit that you lost fair and square. Shikamaru got on board once we accepted all his revisions, and that won us Yamanaka and Akimichi straight away, which was already half the group. Then Akane persuaded Lee that trying out new strategies was most youthful, and Tenten joined us for reasons she obviously didn't explain, and that was a three-quarters majority. The people have spoken, and—"

"Wakahisa, I was there. Some of us have sufficient brainpower to remember an event that took place the previous day without needing to rehearse it as though it were oral tradition."

"That's good to hear. I'm sure you and your fanboys already have enough of an oral tradition—hold that thought, we've got another trade."

He turned away from a fuming Hyūga, and towards the water clone, which had navigated Route Seven with a clone's single-minded precision and now stood still with a handful of seals for trade in its right hand.

Noburi reached out, collected the bunch, and began to flick through them with a practised motion.

"Active Night Light, active Night Light, expired Night Light, expired Night Light, expired Night Light…"

Noburi's hand stopped as if of its own accord. He was so familiar with Night Lights by now that he could probably draw one in his sleep (if he wanted to be lynched by a pair of furious sealmasters in the morning). But the next seal he saw was more familiar still.

It was an explosive tag.

He was holding an explosive tag.

He was holding an armed explosive tag.

He was holding an unknown number of armed explosive tags.

Behind him, Hyūga's scream of warning came too late.

-o-​

"Explosive!"

Hazō wasn't Kagome-sensei's apprentice for nothing. By the time his brain had processed anything beyond the "ex", he was already diving for cover behind the thick log that served as his sealcrafting seat.

…

…

The expected blast didn't come. Slowly, carefully, Hazō lifted himself to peek over the top of the log.

"False alarm?" he called out tentatively as the rest of the Leaf contingent began to emerge from behind the various logs, stumps and general wooden debris that they'd carried in for this exact eventuality. All except Noburi, standing upright by the entrance with his arm extended as if giving a fist-bump to the empty air.

"False alarm nothing," Noburi said, an expression of utter exhilaration slowly fading from his face. He opened his hand, and a sodden clump of paper fell to the ground.

Nara reacted instantly. "Neji!"

"Byakugan!"

After a few seconds, Hyūga shook his head. "Nothing. The perimeter is still clear. Whoever that was, they're not pressing the attack."

"What happened?" Yamanaka demanded, brushing twigs out of her hair with an offended scowl.

"Somebody mixed a bunch of explosive tags into their trade goods," Noburi said. "I didn't exactly have a lot of options when the things could have gone off any second, so I took the lot and rammed them right into my water clone's chest. If there's one thing I've learned from two years of pranking Hazō, it's that seals and water do not get on."

He gave a roguish grin.

Hazō suddenly had a revelation regarding a number of mysterious incidents involving his sealing work, but since Noburi had quite possibly just saved all of their lives, he decided to let it go for now.

Hyūga, who must have been standing next to Noburi in order to notice the trap himself, was giving Noburi a disbelieving look.

"That was practically… inspired. Who are you and what have you done with the lackadaisical imbecile we have come to know and restrain ourselves from murdering out of political considerations?"

"Aww, Hyūga," Noburi's grin widened, "are you finally ready to stop flirting and confess your true feelings?"

Keiko cleared her throat pointedly. "If I may interrupt your ever-scintillating repartee…"

"What is it, Keiko?"

"We are not out of the woods yet," she said grimly. "Consider why our unknown assailant would launch such a vicious offensive, yet not follow through."

"Perhaps they suddenly awakened to the extreme unyouthfulness of their strategy and changed their minds?" Lee asked.

Keiko didn't dignify this with a response, much like anything else Rock Lee had said since the previous night.

"The event ends in three hours," Shikamaru explained. "Our enemies know that before long, we will have to leave the fort in order to head for the rendezvous point. This attack was intended either to kill us or to weaken us before a coming confrontation, taking advantage of the effectiveness of explosives within a confined space. If we assume that there will be a coming confrontation, then it is still waiting for us, somewhere beyond our prepared ground.

"Gōketsu's original plan envisioned using traps and fortifications to fend off whichever teams were bold enough to attack us, leaving the rest with a clear message on the inadvisability of doing so. This has not happened, perhaps due to an excessive intimidation factor, though more ominous explanations are possible. As such, the Ring of Death around us may now be filled with surviving teams waiting to relieve us of the seals we have been crafting over the course of the event. Now, it is likely that we will break through the Ring of Death, leaving all our defences behind and potentially taking injuries or expending chakra in the process, only to be set upon as we emerge."

"But why did they attack now?" Sakura asked. "The logical thing to do would be to leave it as late as possible, so we'd have minimal time to treat our injuries before we had to go."

Hazō thought about it. Sakura was right, of course. There was no point injuring somebody if you were just going to give them time to recover afterwards. By the same token, now that they were aware of the enemy's plans, they had time to plan countermeasures, which they wouldn't have had if the attack had taken place at the last minute. The only circumstance under which it was acceptable to give the enemy time to prepare was…

"They think that if they have three hours, they can set up an ambush so good that our extra recovery time won't make a difference."

"We have found ourselves quite the troublesome opponent," Nara said grimly. "The earlier we leave the fort, the less time Gōketsu has to make seals, and the more densely-populated the Ring of Death we must cross. But the later we leave, the more preparation time we allow our would-be assassins, and the greater the risk of being delayed enough to miss the event deadline.

"Let us begin planning. Every minute counts."

Spoiler: dice

Noburi invokes Amateur Design on the trap for free.
Noburi (Alertness): 30 + 3 + 4= 37
Enemy (Trapbuilding): ? + ? = 31
Noburi recognises the trap before its timer runs out and it detonates.
Noburi (Taijutsu): 4 - 9 = -5
Noburi spends 1 FP to reroll.
Noburi (Taijutsu): 4 + 6 = 10
The water clone chooses not to evade and automatically takes 4 shifts of stress. It is destroyed.

-o-​

You have received 7 XP.

You have received 1 FP. Noburi receives an additional 1 FP for a team-saving act of genius.

-o-​

What do you do?

 

[eaglejarl]

Chapter 161v2: Breakout​

"Keiko, Noburi," Hazō said quietly, beckoning them over as he left off making seals in order to step to the designated latrine area. His pseudo-siblings followed him without comment.

"Yes?" Keiko asked as Hazō turned away and attended to natural affairs.

"OPSEC discussion," Hazō said. "I want to make plans with the others and I don't want to say anything I shouldn't. Noburi, I'm not going to say a word about your bloodline unless you raise it. Keiko, same for you about your bloodline, but I wanted to ask you about the pangolins. Anything there that you want to keep secret?"

"Everyone knows that I am the Pangolin Summoner," Keiko said. "During this event I have called upon, and thereby revealed the existence of, Paneru, Panashe, and Panjandrum. It's public knowledge that Paneru is an engineer, Panashe is a scout, and Panjandrum is a melee combatant. I would prefer to keep all other aspects of my summoning abilities private, as well as not going into detail on what those three are capable of."

"Done," Hazō said, nodding. "We'll want to keep some of the seals secret as well. We've shown Air and Earth Dome, as well as Five Seal Barrier, Lesser Barrier Formation, and of course explosives. Let's keep the rest of it secret, unless we really need to fight. Especially the one Noburi used against Hyūga."

Keiko nodded. Noburi frowned in thought. "The one I used...oh, not Neji, the girl. Agreed."

"Great," Hazō said. "In that case, I've got a plan—"

"Duh," Noburi muttered under his breath. Hazō manfully ignored him.

"—and I want to check it with you guys before we run it by the rest of the group. I'm thinking...."

o-o-o-o​

"...and then we leave through the tunnel and head straight to the rally point. Any comments?" Hazō asked.

The Leaf genin exchanged glances. Those glances were complicated and Hazō couldn't entirely read them. Suspicion from Neji, but that was to be expected. The others seemed to have a strange mix of confusion, surprise, and uncertainty. It was clear that these teams weren't used to working together in such close alliance—not unusual, since genin teams typically were sent on lower-risk missions and by definition lower-risk missions didn't require more than a three-genin cell plus their chūnin- or jōnin-sensei. Still, he felt pretty confident; Keiko and Noburi had already checked the plan over and it was unlikely that anyone here would find issues, with the possible exception of—

"Your plan is to cower in this death trap of a fortress, and then tunnel out of the swamp so that we don't have to fight?" Neji said in disbelief. "How do you expect the judges to react to running away like that? That's no way to get promoted!"

"The event is about points, not combat," Hazō asserted. "The fact that we found a way to achieve the mission with no risk to ourselves should make us more likely to get promoted, not less. Being a good ninja isn't about winning fights, it's about completing your assigned missions quickly and efficiently so that you can go on the next one as soon as possible."

"The plan seems generally sound," Nara said, triggering a betrayed look from Neji and a notable degree of relaxation from the rest of the audience. Hazō found himself mildly envious, and wondered how long it would be before the other Leaf ninja had such trust in his intelligence and insight.

"The tunnels will offer a good place to hide the bodies," Nara continued. "My team and Neji should be in a central position, with the rest of you spread out along the perimeter—"

"Hang on," Hazō said. "What bodies? The whole point of the plan is to avoid combat."

"And won't that look good on our evaluations," Neji said under his breath.

Keiko ignored him and nodded as though suddenly realizing something. "Of course," she said to Nara. "We don't have enough seals, do we? Not nearly."

"Indeed," Nara said. "It would be best if Leaf could not simply lead the event but utterly crush it. It would be far too troublesome to have to come back next year."

"You can say that again," Haruno muttered.

"Plus, my mother would undoubtedly hound me to train harder if my performance does not satisfy her."

"I can make more seals," Hazō offered.

"Based on your rate of production thus far, you will not be able to make enough to matter. You have thus far made four hundred and thirty-two seals, plus contributed twenty-four more that your team and Ishihara were already carrying. We then traded away fifty-one of those—"

"Stupid," Neji muttered.

Nara turned to him with a raised eyebrow. "Stupid?" he asked.

"Yes, stupid. He's been trading glowing seals for dead ones! We're being graded on the number of glowing seals we turn in, so why give them away? Especially since you're saying that we don't have enough."

Nara sighed. "Allow me to clarify. The rules of the event are that we are in the swamp for forty-eight hours and that we can obtain glowing Night Light seals from the proctors—by 'proctor' I am, of course, referring to the Mist ninja who are referees and judges for the event. At the end—"

"I know what a proctor is!" Neji growled.

"Of course you do. As I was saying, when the event ends we will each receive one point quote 'for every glowing seal' endquote that we turn in to the judges at the rally point outside the swamp. Gōketsu Hazō has created or contributed a final total of four hundred and five seals to our group as well as disseminating fifty-one to contestants from five other villages. Therefore—"

"I was there for all of this," Neji growled. "You don't need to repeat every detail of the last two days."

"Apparently he does," Noburi said helpfully. "It's okay, though. If you listen reeeeally closely to the smart guy, maybe some of it will rub off on you! Wouldn't it be great to be able to tie your own shoes?"

"Listen—"

"The exact rules," Nara cut in, "were that we would receive one point for each glowing seal that we turn in, but that was clearly intended to mean the Night Light seals that the proctors have been distributing. Those seals, as you yourself found when you went to the proctors before joining us here, have two important characteristics: their light has a distinctive appearance and, unlike most seals, they require a large amount of chakra to activate. The Party Trick seals that Gōketsu has made require a negligible amount of chakra to activate, but they are visibly not the same as the Night Light seals, so Mist would be within their rights to disqualify them. However! Due to the trading there are now three major and two minor villages whose contestants are carrying the Party Trick seals. The Kage from those villages would object most strenuously were Mist to attempt such a thing and thereby disadvantage the students from those five villages. The trading was an insightful and effective strategy that significantly reduced the risk of this exam while giving us a notable advantage over the other contestants."

Neji blushed. "You said yourself that we don't have enough," he grumbled. "Not nearly."

"Yes," Nara said patiently. "Gōketsu has graciously agreed to divide his supply among us evenly. That means each of us will receive thirty-three seals with nine left over, since four hundred and five divided by twelve is slightly over thirty-three. The extra nine seals should be divided among Ishihara and the Gōketsu—I would suggest two each with Gōketsu Hazō receiving three since he scribed the vast majority of them."

"I was actually going to suggest we divide them evenly," Hazō said uncomfortably. "I can make a few more so the numbers come out."

"That would be good," Nara said, nodding thanks. "However, if there are any leftovers they should go to you and yours since you are the ones who supplied them. Regardless, this is a side issue. Based on Gōketsu Keiko's estimates of the number of proctors in the swamp and the number of seals that Neji said the proctor was carrying, there are on the order of four thousand seals available. They require a comparatively large amount of chakra to activate and all contestants will need to keep a a supermajority of their chakra available for combat or escape. I would estimate that most candidates will acquire between ten and fifteen seals from the proctors; there are approximately three hundred candidates in the Exams, so the entire pool of seals is likely to be in play."

"Ten or fifteen? We've got more than that," Akimichi said, speaking around the brick of cheese he was nibbling.

"Seals will not be distributed evenly," Keiko replied. "Teams will have been taken out and looted by stronger teams. Some of those teams will in turn have been taken out by yet-stronger teams. It is reasonable to believe that the top three to five teams have acquired on the order of fifty percent of the available pool. That is two thousand seals divided among twelve to fifteen people, or approximately one hundred and seventy seals each. It is likely that at least half of those will have been acquired on the first day, before anyone knew that they would expire. In that case they are now expended, reducing the likely total per person to only eighty or ninety each, or perhaps even as low as seventy. Regardless, we need to do some looting of our own."

"Troublesome," Nara grumbled.

"Okay," Hazō said reluctantly. "So, first trick is going to be finding people to loot. Yesterday Nara said that there's a 'Ring of Death' around us, with other teams waiting to loot us or anyone who comes to trade with us. We could go stomp some of them." His stomach felt like he'd swallowed curdled milk; he had been so sure that he'd found a different path through the exam, that he would be able to win without having to hurt anyone. But no, the world of ninja was never so kind. It would always find a way to make everything horrible...was he going to have to literally beat the idea of peace and cooperation into everyone's heads?! Some days it seemed like it.

Spoiler: Award

Ping! +1 Fate Point: "Creative Idealist". New total: 5

"I believe your original strategy to be superior," Nara said. "We exit through a tunnel and go to the rally point. The proctors would likely object to us fighting at the rally point, but we can set an ambush a short distance away and attack those who take a straight-line path." He turned to Neji. "The ones who take a straight-line path are either the most foolish, who don't think of the possibility of ambush, or the most powerful, who do not fear one and view it as an opportunity to acquire yet more seals. The former are no risk and the latter will have the most seals."

"Yes, thank you," Neji said.

"I nominate Nara as group commander," Hazō said. "We need someone in charge to coordinate among the teams."

"Seconded," Haruno said.

"Now, wait—" Nara began.

"Thirded!" Yamanaka said firmly. "Suck it up, Shika."

"Gōketsu would be a better choice," Nara said desperately, gesturing towards Hazō. "He identified the exploit in the rules and found the way to ensure that Mist would need to go along with it."

For just a moment, Hazō wavered. It would be satisfying to command the group and, assuming things went well, it would be a good way to cement their respect and trust. If he was going to achieve his goals of imposing peace on the world he would need respect, trust, and authority from important people such as clan heirs, friends of the jinchūriki of the Nine-Tailed Fox, and ninja skilled enough to have been assigned jōnin as their squad leaders.

"Thank you, Nara," he said at last. "It's a generous offer and I would like to say—"

---

What does Hazō want to say?

Vote time! What to do now? Options include:

1. Accept the leadership. Pro: You get to plan the plan for the next update and if you do well your status among your peers goes up. Con: If things go badly you could end up destroying the relationships you've been working so hard to build.
2. Refuse the leadership. Pro: Low risk. No matter how things go with the ambush, you're not going to be blamed. Con: Low reward. Your relations with the other Leaf genin will improve slightly when they see your practicality and lack of ego, but you'd gain a lot more by taking the lead and succeeding.

If you choose to take the leadership you'll want to come up with a battle plan that allows you to locate and defeat at least four and possibly as many as eight other three-man ninja teams with unknown abilities—that's Keiko's assessment of the minimum number you'll need to take down in order to ensure your teams come out ahead in the event. Your resources are:

• Hazō, Noburi, Keiko
• Akane, Sakura, Haru
• Ino-Shika-Chō
• Neji, Tenten, Lee

Based on what you saw as you circled the Swamp of Moderate Inconvenience two days ago, there are three places between here and the rally point that would make decent ambush sites:

1. The very edge of the Swamp where you will emerge if you take a straight-line path from your fort to the rally site. It leads into a moderately forested area about half a mile wide.
   • Pro: There are some reeds and bramble bushes that you could hide in, as well as the trees.
   • Pro: You could jump people just as they were getting to the edge of the land, meaning they were still water-walking and vulnerable to chakra drain.
   • Con: You can't usefully employ Syrup Trap or Goo Bombs on a liquid surface.
   • Con: The water table is just beneath the surface so you won't be able to hide in a hole without drowning.
2. Midway through the forest.
   • Pro: There's a small creek that would provide a water source for jutsu and, again, a potential option for chakra drain if you could force enemies to stay in it.
   • Pro: The land slopes up from the edge of the Swamp so you would have more options for digging.
   • Con: The forest is relatively open and it's winter, so there's no leaves on the trees. Concealment will be more difficult.
3. On the open meadow between the forest and the rally point. It's grassy and open. Very few of the plants will try to eat you.
   • Pro: Long sightlines so you'll see people coming.
   • Pro: Concealment is possible although not trivial. The grass isn't more than knee high at the highest, plus it's dried out and brown. Moving through it will leave a trail unless you move very slowly and carefully.
   • Pro: There's a small hill at the edge of the meadow; the rally point is about fifty yards on the other side. The hill will serve as a good backstop to ensure no misaimed shots landing on the proctors.
   • Con: Long sightlines so people will see you coming.
   • Con: Some of the plants will try to eat you.
   • Con: I had one more but have forgotten it. It wasn't more severe than the others listed above and I'll add it back if I think of it.

Voting ends on Wednesday, February 7, 2018, at 12pm London time.

---

Author's Note: Keiko vetoed the idea of disabling the traps around the fort, since she couldn't see any safe way to do it that wouldn't either alert the lurkers or put you all at risk. Also, I would like to say that I admired your plan; finding a peaceful and cooperative solution was a brilliant application of Hazō's principles and values. I was perfectly happy to let it go through, but when I sat down to math out how many points everyone was going to get I realized it wasn't going to work. The question then became whether anyone on the teams would figure it out; after discussion with the other QMs we came up with this.

 

[OliWhail]

Chapter 162.1: Hunt Like Raptors​

"...thank you for showing such faith in me. I have a rough plan worked out, and I would be willing to take point, but not over the objections of other members of the group. For the most part you guys haven't known me for long, so I understand if there are reservations, and I don't have any interest in brushing those off. This is going to be a pretty high-trust operation, after all," Hazou concluded.

Everyone was silent a moment or two before Hyuuga spoke up. "Fine, I'll say it if none of you will. Nara should lead. Gōketsu Hazou is occasionally clever and occasionally an idiot. Nara is consistently a genius. I would be much more comfortable taking orders from him."


"Neji!" Lee exclaimed from right behind Hyuuga, making the other boy jump. "Your lack of faith is most unyouthful!"


"Yes!" Akane chimed in. "Besides, Hazou is only very rarely an idiot, and almost never if he gets to talk through things first!"


"I am forced to agree with Hyuuga," Yamamoto said softly. "We don't need a plan from nowhere so crazy that it just might actually work, we need something that's as close to a guarantee as possible, and we have the time to really think through things."


"I'm sticking to my guns here," Yamanaka said. "Sorry, Gōketsu. It's not that I don't trust you, but it's not every day I can get Shika to actually do... well, anything at all, really."


Haruno nodded in agreement before appearing to catch herself and then glaring at Yamanaka. Idly, Hazou wondered what that was about.


Nara had by now begun massaging his temples. "Troublesome..." he muttered. "Fine. Six hours," he stated emphatically, pointing at Hazou.


"Six-- ah. Deal." Hazou couldn't see any way that being hooked into the Nara's internal economy could go poorly. Nope, none at all.


"Superb." Nara stood up. "My first order of business as your new commanding officer is to begin calling that time in. Tell everyone the plan, if you would. I'm going to go make tea."


Yamanaka made a choking sound before practically yelling, "You lazy bastard!"

-o-​

"Hazou, Panashe reported back. We're go for evac," Noburi called into the sealing mouse-hole. Hazou stood up, rolled his shoulders for a moment, and grabbed the last of the Party Trick seals to distribute.


It may have been his imagination, but Hazou thought the dripping earth of the tunnel walls was starting to sag inward even as he brought up the rear. Their group raced forward, the tunnel filled with squelching footfalls, heavy breathing, and the warm light of one of the nightlights they'd been traded, its shimmering patterns slowing down as it neared the end of its life.


Eventually the ground firmed up, and the party began trudging up the incline Panashe had previously dug before stopping at a signal from the pangolin. "A moment, Summoner," she said. "If your party could keep still, that would be immensely helpful. Pantokrator's Ears Technique!"


Taking his cue, Neji formed his bloodline's single handseal. "Byakugan!" Then, after a moment, he reported, "We're clear."


"Clear confirmed," Panashe said. "Breaching in 3, 2, 1...." She ran at the end of the tunnel and dug her claws into the soil, practically shoving it open like two sides of some earthen gate.


The group emerged into a wide meadow. The sun had peeked over the horizon, illuminating the cliffs on which the team was meant to be rallying soon.


"Right then. Gōketsu Keiko, please look over enemies likely trajectories. Gōketsu Hazou and Noburi, distribute camouflage supplies. Everyone else, grab a suit and familiarize yourself with spots for cover and Silence Mine placement," Nara ordered. "Specialist Panashe, if you could possibly assist your Summoner and identify a good spot to secure defeated enemy combatants?"


"Certainly," the pangolin answered, scampering off after Keiko.

...​

Hazou wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or pleased that the first team to approach the meadow was fleeing. On the one hand, it meant the enemy figured they would lose, which meant the Leaf nin would probably win. On the other hand, it meant their cover probably wasn't good enough.

Hazou and Yamamoto were already almost on the trio, Yamamoto's face set grimly as he accelerated in a jagged, predatory sprint toward the slowest enemy.


"Yue, duck!" one of the other fleeing nin yelled, leaping over a bush and spinning in midair to fling a pair of shuriken at Yamamoto. She completed her spin and continued sprinting as Yamamoto casually dodged the attack and leapt at the aforementioned Yue, driving an elbow strike into the back of her head to attempt a quick knock-out. She managed to duck just enough that it merely clipped her, then tried to turn that momentum into a spinning kick, which Yamamoto grabbed and used to lever her into a vicious throw, slamming her into the ground on her back.


Hazou wasn't going to pass up a chance like that, and aimed a kick at Yue's head as he passed by, doing his best to keep up with the enemies. He recognized the sign on Yue's forehead protector as her head snapped to the side - Hot Springs. He felt an icy lance of guilt run through his gut, but he forced it down before he could be dragged into visions of collapsing inns and forests of fire.


The third enemy, a boy, glanced over his shoulder to see Hazou and Yamamoto advancing over Yue's limp form and spun on his heel. "You bastards!" he shouted, cutting handseals. "Flame Spears Technique!" Sparks flew from his fingers, engulfing his hands and forearms before flowing forward as he performed something like a a two-fisted punch toward the Leaf nin.


Hazou dove to one side, and Yamamoto to the other, but the other boy wasn't quite quick enough to avoid getting singed - Hazou could see (and smell) that parts of his camo suit had been burned away. Suddenly there was a flash of light and heat - Hazou pulled his eyes away from his comrade to see the enemy grinning at him wickedly, a bright orb of fiery light speeding upward. "Fuck your ambush!" the Hot Spring nin spat.


"Kyo! Stand down!" shouted the girl who'd thrown the shuriken earlier. By now Akane, Lee, and Hyuuga had caught up to the group, with Tenten and Noburi providing ranged cover. "We surrender! We'll hand you our glowing seals, let us take our teammate for medical assistance."

"We'll need all your other seals and word-halves as well," Yamamoto stated flatly. "And our Wakahisa comrade will be taking your chakra."


Hazou cursed inwardly. He'd suggested that part of the plan, sure, but that had been under the assumption that they enemy wouldn't surrender! Why couldn't they just let this end peacefully?


He watched as, inevitably, the Hot Springs ninja shifted back into combat stances. A kunai flew over his shoulder from behind, trailing a tag that erupted into a mass of atrociously sticky glue. Both enemies reacted faster than he was expecting, but it wasn't nearly enough. They were covered instantly.


Almost as quickly as the kunai, Hyuuga moved forward to hook around behind the enemy, water-walking along the sticky pool that now surrounded the pair and delivering a series of pinpoint strikes to the girl who seemed to be in charge, catching her head as she fell to the ground and turning it so that her mouth and nose didn't fall into the goop. Yamamoto and Hazou charged Kyo, who utterly failed to defend against either the crushing knee strike to his gut or the fist that met his temple.

Spoiler: Dice

How long does it take the enemy to show up? <number>
Where are they from? <more numbers>
How strong are they? <one more number>


Weak HS team, minute 2/30

(Enemy, Alertness) vs (Team Leaf, Stealth + Tag: "Grassland Camo" + Silence Mines): Enemy by 3 Shifts
(Enemy, Athletics) vs (Team Leaf, Athletics): Leaf by 3 Shifts


Round 1:
Enemy 1

• Supplemental: Move
• Standard: Ranged Weapons vs Yamamoto, Athletics: Yamamoto, 5 shifts

Yamamoto

• Standard: Taijutsu vs Enemy 2, Athletics + FP to reroll: Yamamoto, 2 shifts
  • Yue takes 2 stress (2/3)

Enemy 2 - 'Yue'

• Standard: Taijutsu vs Yamamoto, Taijutsu + Invoke <?>: Yamamoto, 1 shift
  • Yue takes 1 stress (3/3)

Hazou

• Standard: Taijutsu + Roki vs Yue, Taijutsu: Hazou by 15 shifts
  • Yue is thoroughly taken out
• Self-Control roll: Resolve + Thousand Yard Stare (24) vs TN: 20 ("Fair"): Pass w/ 3 shifts

Enemy 3 - 'Kyo'

• Standard:
  • Flame Spears + Chakra Boost + Invoke "Big Brother is Watching" vs Hazou, Athletics: Hazou, 2 shifts
  • Flame Spears + Chakra Boost + Invoke "Big Brother is Watching" vs Yamamoto, Athletics + FP to reroll (same result, yikes): Kyo, 4 shifts
    • Yamamoto has 4 stress incoming, converting 2 to the mild consequence "Lightly Toasted"
• Supplemental: Katon Cantrip

Round 2:
(Other teammates catch up, talking ensues briefly)


Round 3:
Neji

• Hold turn until after Tenten

Tenten

• Supplemental: Prime Goo Bomb
• Standard:
  • Ranged Weapons vs Enemy 1, Athletics: Tenten, 7 shifts
  • Ranged Weapons vs Kyo, Athletics: Tenten, 8 shifts
  • Both Enemy 1 and Kyo are hit with the Aspect "Stuck In Place", and lose 18 points from any Athletics rolls

Neji

• Tenten passes tag as a free action
• Standard: Taijutsu + Gentle Fist + Tag: "Stuck in Place" vs Enemy 1, Taijutsu: Neji, 12 shifts
  • Enemy 1 taken out

Enemy 1

• Unconscious

Yamamoto:

• Tenten passes tag as a free action
• Standard: Taijutsu + Tag: "Stuck in Place" vs Kyo, Taijutsu: Yamamoto, 5 shifts
  • Kyo translates 2 into the Mild Consequence "Bruised Up" and 3 to the Moderate Consequence "That Crunching Sound Was Totally Normal"

Hazou

• Standard: Taijutsu + Roki vs Kyo, Taijutsu - CM: Mild Consequence - CM: Moderate Consequence: Hazou, holy shit all the shifts ever
  • Kyo taken out

"Noburi!" Hazou called out as Kyo finally collapsed.


"Way ahead of you bro!" Noburi said, already kneeling next to the unconscious Yue, running a hand of medical chakra over her even as he stuck her finger in a canteen to begin draining her. Beside him, Tenten began rapidly relieving the patient of her possessions.


"Fifty-two seals between these two," Neji reported after a few moments.

"Seventy-eight total, then?" Hazou surmised. "Damn. We might have a lot more of this ahead of us today."

---

AN: The first results of your ambush plan. More to be written tomorrow. Enjoy the early half-update!

 

[eaglejarl]

Chapter 163v2: The Gathering​

The basic clone was widely accepted as useless. A mere visual illusion that cast no shadow, made no sound, had no substance, had short range, and required focused concentration to control, it was used as a chakra control exercise by Academy students and then generally forgotten for the rest of a ninja's career in favor of Elemental Clones and similar techniques.

Nara's clone was hiding inside a tree at the edge of the meadow, completely out of sight. Hazō had been staring at that spot for ten minutes before the clone's hands appeared from inside the tree and started making handsigns.

<Incoming. That direction. Yards. Nine. Lightning nin. Three. Wounded. Seal. Ninety-three.>

Hazō sighed with relief, being careful to keep it below the threshold that the Silence Mine next to his head would conceal. It had been five minutes since the last team went through and he was starting to get antsy. What he had affectionately termed 'SuperTeam Leaf' needed to be at the rally point in fifteen minutes and so far they had only gathered one hundred and nineteen seals—seventy-eight from the first team to go through, forty-one from the second. Split between the twelve members of SuperTeam Leaf and added to their original totals that was only forty-three apiece. Nowhere near what they estimated was needed in order to be at the top of the rankings. If they didn't get some bigger targets through in the next ten minutes they were going to have a problem.

The worst part, of course, was the uncertainty. How many teams had been eliminated over the past two days? What was the cutoff for making it to the next event? Exactly how much time was left before they had to be at the rally point? After all, clocks were notoriously inaccurate things.

The team faded out of the woods with admirable caution; if Hazō hadn't known exactly where to look he wouldn't have seen them. They paused at the treeline, taking a knee and surveying the meadow carefully before stepping foot inside it.

From the corner of his eye, Hazō saw a Chōji-sized clump of grass shifting. The Lightning team caught it and were on their feet instantly, pivoting to flee.

"Go go go!" Hazō shouted, leaping to his feet and charging. Half a dozen other ninja were on their feet and charging. A pair of kunai went past his ear, exploding into sticky goo that coated the enemy ninja as they attempted to flee.

"We surrender!" shouted the leader of the foreign team, struggling and failing to pull her feet out of the taffy-like chakra construct.

"What?" / "WHAT?!" Her teammates stared at her in shock.

"Stand down, guys," said the leader. A tall blonde with a scar on her cheek, she was perhaps a year or two older than Hazō and, bizarrely, there was a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"Stand down, Leaf," Nara called, rising from where he and Hyūga had been crouching behind the bush at the center of the clearing.

Hazō slowed to a halt, eyeing the Lightning team distrustfully.

"Nice ambush," the blonde said, chuckling ruefully. "Should have known Leaf would try ganging up."

"You seem surprisingly unconcerned at the idea of being outnumbered and immobilized," Nara said, closing the distance with un-Nara-like speed and a frown.

"Yeah, well, my sensei used to say that prior planning prevents piss-poor performance." The blonde held up a reassuring hand and reached slowly into the satchel she wore at her hip, bringing out two separate bundles of glowing seals, each tied together with twine. She held them up and turned them slightly, tapping her finger on the explosive tag tied to the back of each one in a completely unnecessary effort to call attention to it.

"These are low-power explosive training tags," she said. "Not strong enough to hurt, but more than enough to destroy all sixty-six of these lovely points I'm holding. You get us out of this muck and let us go, you can have half the seals. Or, alternatively, you can try to take them from me before I can set the explosive off." Her grin became fierce. "What do you say? Want to play 'whose reflexes are faster' with a Lightning nin, or do you want to take thirty-three seals with no risk?" She waggled the bundle of tags in her left hand temptingly.

"You have a total of ninety-three tags," Nara said calmly. "Because you attempted to deceive us, you will hand over fifty of them. At that point we will let you go."

"They should give us their word halves and their chakra, too," Yamamoto said.

"No fucking way," snarled the Lightning ninja on the right, a stocky boy with brown hair and a snarl on his face.

"Don't do it, Hikari," said the Lightning ninja on the left. "Blow them all. Don't give the bastards anything. We'll make it up in the next event."

"Try it and I'll break your legs," Yamamoto said calmly.

Akane rounded on her teammate in surprise. "Yamamoto! That is most unyouthful!"

Yamamoto shrugged. "This isn't hopscotch in the playground," he said calmly. "This is the Chūnin Exams. And we're burning daylight right now. Another team could come along any minute and we're out of position."

"Stop," Nara said, raising a hand. "If we attempt to take their word halves they have no incentive to cooperate and every incentive to detonate the seals." He turned back to the Lightning ninja. "Despite that, he makes a good point. Eliminating three opponents from the Exams would likely be worth losing fifty seals."

Hikari's smile slipped. "Uh...."

Nara tapped his finger on his chin in thought for a moment. "On balance, I think we need the points. You will give us the sixty-six seals you claimed to have. In return we will not take your chakra or your word halves. This deal is on the table for another five seconds."

"Done!" Hikari said gratefully. "Sage, I thought you Leaf types were the nice ones."

"We are," Hyūga said flatly, the lack of intonation and the all-white eyes of his active bloodline rendering him momentarily inhuman. "We're letting you bargain instead of cutting your throats and throwing the bodies in a storage seal." He paused. "Point of information: There's no proctors close enough to hear you scream."

o-o-o-o​

There were three proctors at the rally point. They had set up a small awning to keep the sun off and were lounging on folding camp stools in its shade, sipping on iced drinks as a line of contestants shuffled by to turn in their seals. The Leaf ninja were among the last to arrive and they found themselves facing a very long line indeed. There had been something like three hundred genin in the group that had been dropped off in the swamp two days ago. It was hard to get an accurate count, but the number seemed to be down to around two hundred, although it was probably higher since ninja were leaving as soon as they handed in their seals and some would have been gone by the time SuperTeam Leaf arrived. It didn't take long to process each team, but the proctors kept taking breaks and making everyone stand around while they ate snacks and chatted among themselves for ten or fifteen minutes before getting back to 'work'.

This wasn't such a big deal for SuperTeam Leaf; they had spent the entire time getting plenty of sleep while camped out in a comfortable fort and they were rolling with Team Uplift, who had a couple dozen storage scrolls full of hot food, cold water, and camp stools nicer than the ones the proctors were using.

The contestants who had not been holed up in the Uplifting Fortress of Doom were sleep-deprived and covered in bug bites, as well as being either wounded, on the edge of chakra exhaustion, or both.

Other Leaf teams drifted over to join the party and were welcomed with food and drink in turn. There weren't enough stools to go around, but there were plenty of blankets and it quickly turned into an impromptu picnic. The other Leaf ninja were amused, and somewhat annoyed, to hear that SuperTeam Leaf had sealsmithed, traded, and bargained their way through the exam while only engaging in two actual fights. There was general amusement at the story of the negotiation with the Lightning ninja.

"I wanted to thank you, Yamamoto," Nara said, turning to the worthy in question. "You handled your part of the negotiations excellently."

Yamamoto shrugged. "No worries. Next time you need somebody to play 'hard interrogator', let me know." He went back to spooning up the second bowl of chicken ramen that Hazō had handed him.

"That was a trick?" Akane asked in surprise.

Yamamoto nodded. "Yeah. They were stalling us, so I gave Nara a hard man to play off against."

"It worked well," Nara said. "Neji, your threat at the end provided a certain...piquancy."

Hyūga shrugged. "Lord Hyūga frequently talks about how Leaf's reputation is a two-edged blade. Being known for decency and honor is useful so long as it is not confused with weakness. Given how generous our bargain was, I felt it important to provide the counterpoint so they wouldn't think us weak."

"Looks like the line's clearing out," Haruno said, glancing over to the proctors' area. She tucked her half-eaten sandwich back into a storage scroll and stood up, brushing her hands off on her trousers. "Let's go find out how we did."

o-o-o-o​

'Clearing out' wasn't the same as 'empty'. It took ten minutes before Hazō finally got to the head of the line, Noburi and Keiko at his back to keep an eye on the other ninja in the area. It was very unlikely that anyone would try to jump them right in front of the proctors, but it also wasn't worth taking the chance.

The proctor who was taking the seals was probably in his early thirties, with scars on his face and neck. There was no hair sticking out from under the bandana he wore on his head, hinting at either premature baldness or unsightly combat damage. He sat on his camp stool with a cane on the ground to his right and a bag full of softly-glowing seals to his left. A folding table in front of him held a notepad and a charcoal stick.

"Name and village?" he grunted, not bothering to look up as he flipped to a new page in the notepad.

"Gōketsu Hazō, Leaf. My teammates are Gōketsu Noburi and Gōketsu Keiko."

The proctor finally looked up, eyebrows raised. "You're that Kurosawa traitor, aren't you?"

Hazō grit his teeth. "My name is Gōketsu Hazō," he said firmly, refusing to be baited. "I am the adoptive son of Jiraiya, Lord Hokage of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. I am also the natural-born nephew of the Mizukage. I have fifty seals. Noburi and Keiko each have forty-nine."

"Let's see 'em," the proctor grunted, holding out a blunt-fingered hand. Hazō wordlessly gave him the seals and watched carefully as the man counted them, twice, before jotting something down in the notebook.

"Fine," the proctor grunted, seeming irritated. "Your scores are recorded, get lost."

"Did we make the cut-off?" Hazō asked.

"What?"

"Did we make the cut-off?" he repeated. "How did we do compared to the other contestants?" He doubted the man would answer, but it was worth asking.

"You'll find out before the last event," one of the proctors in the back grunted. "Your individual score is a running total through the first four events. Top sixteen contestants go on to the tournament on the last day."

"Ah," Hazō said. "Good. Thank you."

"We would like a receipt," Keiko said calmly.

"A what?!" growled the proctor who had taken their seals. "Who the hell do you think you are, you treasonous little—"

"I think I am the daughter of Lord Jiraiya of the Legendary Three far more than I ever was the daughter of the Mori," Keiko cut him off. "I think I am a ninja who has already been betrayed by Mist once and is unwilling to be betrayed a second time. I think I am a Chūnin Exam candidate who is making an entirely reasonable request of a proctor and that refusing such a request would suggest intent to interfere with the scoring."

The proctor's eyes narrowed. "Are you suggesting that I would cheat? Listen, girl, accusing a proctor—"

"The Leaf archives contain eighteen separate registered complaints of interference with Chūnin Exam scoring by Mist proctors in the past," Keiko said, cutting him off again. "Statistically, Mist proctors are an untrustworthy group when it comes to managing the scoring in a fair and objective manner. You in particular felt the need to refer to myself and Hazō as traitors, suggesting that you are less trustworthy than most. Hence my need for a receipt."

The proctor glared at her for a moment longer, then tore a sheet out of the notepad, scribbled their scores on it and signed across the bottom. "Here," he said, shoving it into her hands. "The next event isn't for at least thirty-six hours. Now get lost."

"Thank you," Keiko said, bowing politely. "Your exceptional courtesy and professionalism have been noted." She turned on her heel and walked off, Hazō and Noburi following close behind and struggling to suppress their grins.

---

XP AWARD: 6

FP AWARD: 2

FP totals: Hazō, 6. Noburi, 6. Keiko, 5.

Your battle plan was good enough that I decided not to bother running the fights. Presumably everyone took a few stress which then healed.

Vote time! What to do now? Options include:

• Go find Jiraiya and report
• Talk to Shikamaru et al about what the next event might be and how to discover when/where it is.
• Talk to the other Leaf genin (including the ~30 who were not part of SuperTeam Leaf) and find out how they scored and what they encountered
• Something else?

Voting ends on Wednesday, February 14, 2018, at 12pm London time.

Spoiler: Notes and Rolls

Number of teams through the ambush, 1d4: 2
Number of total seals gained from group #1, ?: 41
Number of total seals gained from group #2, ?: 66

Ambush of Lightning Team
Lightning Team, highest Alertness: ? + 4dF: 42
SuperTeam Leaf, lowest Stealth: ? + tag 'Lay of the Land' + tag 'Thoroughly Prepared Ambush' + tag 'Camoflage Assisted by More Stealth-Competent People' + tag 'Stealth Gear' + 3 (Silence Mine): ? + 4dF: 19

Social Not-Combat with the Lightning Team
I'm not running this as a combat because the outcome is not in doubt. The Lightning team is too outnumbered and outclassed.

Social Combat with the Proctor
In this corner, weighing in at a stocky hundred and eighty-two pounds in just his skivvies, the proctor for the Chūnin Exams, the survivor of over a decade of constant service before being medicaled out, the senior chūnin, Oooochiro Daaaaaiiiiichi!

And in this corner, fourteen years old and weighing in at maybe a hundred and thirty pounds soaking wet, the Queen of Brittle Ice herself, the Pangolin Summoner, the Girl with the 3.4 Mile Stare, the big, the bad, Gōōōōketsu Keeeiiiiiikooooooo!

Fight!
Keiko, Intimidation(20) + Thousand Yard Stare(6) + tag "My Dad's More Badass Than You'll Ever Be": 29. Note: Just before combat started Hazō did something that was either invoking that Aspect or making a Maneuver to create it. Given those circumstances, it's a judgement call as to whether Keiko should get to tag that or have to invoke it. I'm currently cooking a turkey as part of Thanksgiving-in-February-because-I'm-a-grownup-and-I-get-to-do-that-if-I-want-to and it smells amazing, so I'm going to let it be a tag.
Ochiro, Resolve(20) + 4dF: 23

Ochiro takes 2 stress on his 3-box Mental stress track!
Ochiro, Presence(23) + tag "I'm the Proctor, Damnit!" + 4dF: 29
Keiko, Resolve(20) + Thousand Yard Stare(6) + burn 1 FP to invoke "Brittle Queen of Ice": 32. Again, something of a judgement call whether or not TYS boosts Resolve on social defense. Turkey still smells amazing so here you go. Might not work this way next time, though.

Ochiro takes 2 stress on his Mental track! He chooses not to take Consequences and instead yields the fight.

Hazō started the fight with 5 FP and everyone else started with 4. As per the plan, Hazō burned a Fate Point to say that you had a storage scroll full of stealth gear. Keiko burned one during her social combat.

Team Uplift contributed a total of 12 Silence Mine seals to the various ambushes. These have been deducted from everyone's sheets, leaving Team Uplift with 2 SM seals apiece.

Keiko used 2 of Kagome's Goo Bomb seals. Tenten used 2 more. These have been deducted from the count, leaving each member of Team Uplift at 9.

 

[Velorien]

Interlude (AU): The Other Member of the Three
​

It was another ordinary day at Research Facility 13. Unnatural screams echoed in the distance, the pipes overhead hissed and bubbled as hazardous substances sped down them to parts preferably unknown, and Hazō sat at a table sipping herbal tea as he idly debated philosophy with his family.​

"On the contrary," Keiko said, "I think it is clear that when the Mizukage refers to 'a life lived with honour', he is referring to adherence to a rigid code of loyalty, incorporating both submission to authority and the avoidance of all forms of betrayal. You will note the reference to punishment, which implies the requirement of meeting defined external expectations."

Hazō shook his head as he put down his cup. "You're only saying that because the same chapter talks about traitors as being the most dishonourable members of any human society. But in context, honour has a broader meaning. It's about how you should conduct your life as a person, both towards other people and in terms of your own thoughts and feelings. Punishment in this case is inherent to the nature of the crime—living dishonourably just has predictable negative effects."

"That's a definition so broad as to be useless. My Vision was intended to be a guide to the specifics of life as a citizen in the Mizukage's Mist, not a vague meditation on ethics."

"You can't be serious," Hazō objected. "Don't you remember what he says in the third section of Chapter 2, in the discussion of proper treatment of one's fellow man? There's a universalisable moral imperative here, not just a narrowly-defined ideology."

"Children," Orochimaru chuckled drily, "what have I told you about taking ethics too seriously? If you want to understand the Mizukage's thinking, you have to take a pragmatic perspective. What is his end goal, and in what ways does he wish to transform his readers in order to achieve it?"

Hazō reached for his teacup again, and found it empty. Orochimaru's unique herbal tea, ideal for relaxing the body and stimulating the mind, was a favourite of everyone on Team Singularity, and Orochimaru was always lamenting how quickly they went through his supplies. The outcast genius lamented a lot of things, few of them seriously. Back when they first joined him after fleeing the Swamp of Death, he'd seen them as little more than walking Bloodline Limits for research, but he'd soon warmed to the idea of assistants who not only shared his fascination with unlimited advancement of the human species but brought plenty of new ideas to the table, to say nothing of Mari-sensei's diplomatic capabilities (social skills not being Orochimaru's strongest point).

As for Hazō, he loved having a mentor who accepted the most extreme and dangerous research proposals for review without flinching, and those augmentations they'd all received over the years weren't half bad either. Meanwhile, Keiko delighted in the constant intellectual stimulation Orochimaru's work provided, and who'd have thought that Noburi would discover such a gift for medical experimentation within himself?

"Bitey," Hazō beckoned their servant of the day, "pour me more tea."

Orochimaru gave a disapproving hiss. "I told you, Hazō, never name your future dissection subjects. It is awkward for all concerned."

"That was Noburi," Hazō said. "He says it's easier to tell them apart that way than if you use a series of numbers. Besides, Bitey doesn't need dissecting. You said the seventh generation—"

But the chakra deathclaw's appendage shook a little as it lifted the teapot, sending tea all over the tablecloth.

"Never mind."

"My bad," Noburi called out, rising up the laboratory stairs. "I really thought we'd got the Iron Nerve properly integrated this time. Keiko gave the schematics the OK and everything."

"Noburi," Orochimaru said sharply, "what have I told you about leaving the labs without complete disinfection? Do you want to end up like my previous assistant?"

"Sorry, Stepfather," Noburi muttered as he retreated. "Save me some tea."

Orochimaru sighed. "That boy has survived longer than any other human ever to enter my workspace, but sometimes I fear it is through luck more than good judgement. Thank you for cleaning the table, Keiko."

"Not at all. It does seem I am partly to blame for the seventh generation's incompleteness. With the Chūnin Exams so close, we cannot afford another disaster like the fifth."

Hazō shuddered as he recalled the last hours of Research Facility 4.

"I just hope it's worth it," he said.

"It will be," Orochimaru said. "Once we brand all of the world's top genin with the self-replicating cursed seal you helped me design, all we will have to do is sit back and wait."

He looked at the chakra deathclaw. "Bitey," he said with distaste, "report to Dissection Subject Storage.

"Now, while we wait for Noburi, perhaps one of you could analyse the Mizukage's assertions on honour from a more goal-oriented perspective? I think it will offer you valuable insight on the subtleties of mental conditioning… which I imagine will come in useful very soon."

-o-
​

Apologies for delay and lack of canon update. The torch will have to be passed to @eaglejarl this week.

 

[eaglejarl]

Chapter 164v2: The Third Event Pregame​

"I thought that went pretty well," Hazō said, silently handing the bowl of dumplings to Akimichi. The fa...big-boned ninja gave him a bright smile and flicked four of the tasty treats onto his plate.

"Yeah," Haruno said, nodding. "Beat the pants off what I thought we were going to have to do. You saw the rest of them while we were waiting for the proctors."

Hazō nodded, eyes flicking momentarily into memory as he reviewed the image of the clearing in which they had picnicked that afternoon; his wilderness-experienced eyes had surveyed the crowd of Exam contestants and noted down the signs of exhaustion here and there, of scrapes and bruises and bite marks, of missing hair from close enounters with flamebushes, of twitchiness from forty-eight hours on constant high alert, of discomfort with one's own skin as a result of being covered in muck and sweat and filth for two days straight. The first thing that Hazō had done after getting back to the barracks had been to get a bath, and there had been a steady stream of people coming in behind him. (Well, the second thing, after talking with Noburi and Keiko about plans for the next event. Well, okay, the third thing, after securing the room and talking with Noburi and Keiko. Okay, one of the first things he'd done had been to take a bath.) The rest of SuperTeam Leaf had been similarly motivated, and it wasn't until now that they'd managed to gather everyone up for more plotting.

"Indeed! I find my apprecation for your most youthful talents swelling until it trembles on the verge of eruption!"

Hazō shuddered. "Lee, do I need to break out the 'words you are not allowed to use' list again?"

"Ah, fear not, my youthful companion! You have made thoroughly clear your desire to restrain me! I must apologize, however; it is most difficult for me to submit to such demands!"

Hazō facepalmed.

"Moving on," Noburi said, thankfully steering the conversation to anywhere that wasn't here, while simultaneously flashing Hazō an only-mostly-discreet 'you owe me' sign. "Working together in the swamp was really effective. We barely had to fight at all, meaning that—as Haruno said—we're fresh and unhurt while everyone else is exhausted and banged up. On the other hand, there's so many of us that we probably only placed in the middle of the pack."

"Indeed. On balance, a win. As well as being far less troublesome."

Neji snorted.

"What do the rest of you think about continuing the alliance?" Hazō asked. "At least in regards to finding where and when events are going to be. We'll need to compete against each other at some point, but it just seems sensible to work together as far as ensuring we all get to the events. The better Leaf looks in the Exams the better all of our chances of getting promoted."

Glances were exchanged; the level of agreement ranged from the enthusiastic ("What a youthful concept!") to the lukewarm ("Makes sense, I guess."), but everyone was clearly onboard...with one exception.

"Hanging with you lot screwed us in the last event," Neji said bitterly. "We barely showed our skills at all and we're probably scoring average at best. With my Byakugan I can find the next event, no problem." His face tightened sourly, but then he grudgingly admitted, "Still, I suppose we're better off working with you to find the thing. No promises once it starts, though. I'm not letting us end up looking mediocre all the way through the Exams."

Tenten coughed, pointedly. Neji rolled his white eyes at her. "No, I don't need to ask your permission to speak up. Do you want to get promoted or not? Hanging with this bunch of...with this bunch isn't the best way to show our skills."

Her eyes narrowed and one eyebrow went up a tiny fraction. For a moment it looked like Neji would argue, but then he deflated.

"...Fine," he grumbled. "We can talk about it."

"Great," Hazō said. "I was thinking about where we go from here. Does anyone mind if I share? Some of these ideas are still pretty half-baked, but Mari-sensei and Jiraiya have both told us that it's useful to get other people's input during the conceptual stage, before you get too attached to your own ideas."

"You've done well by us so far," Akimichi said happily, gulping down his third ball of dango. "What can we help with?"

"Bear with me here. Some of this is going to be obvious, but I'm just thinking out loud."

Haruno snorted, but she had a smile. "Come on, Gōketsu, stop slow-playing us and spit it out. We've all spent enough time around Shikamaru that we don't get offended when people show off how smart they are."

"Um...right. So, here's my thinking: we need to figure out what, when, and where the next event is. We know we've got at least thirty-six hours—thirty-two, now. We know that we can get taken directly to the start of the event if we turn in one of those papers with half of a competitor's word on it. We captured three of those papers, so we could use them to get a jump on things. The one problem is that the word-halves might end up being worth points at the end, so giving them up might or might not be a good move."

"Turning one in does disqualify the creator of the word from the first event," Nara noted. "It is unclear what that means in practice, but it is one way to reduce the competition. Or, at least, to change our relative standing within the field."

"Good point. Which actually brings me to my second idea: we could put some time in on getting people's papers. Right now everyone else is tired and low on chakra, so this would be the best time to go after them. Conning or tricking people into giving us their paper would show good infiltration skills, stealing them would show good stealth, and just mugging people for them would demonstrate combat ability. No matter which approach we took we would also be demonstrating proactivity and planning skills."

"Seems like the kind of things we want to show in order to get promoted," Yamanka said, giving Neji a sly glance. No cat alive could have done a better job of seeming more disdainfully unconcerned than Hyūga Neji managed in reply to the glance.

"Would it be a good idea to mug people?" Yamanaka continued doubtfully. "Seems like attacking another contestant between events would get us disqualified."

"The Mizukage has created an interesting situation in that regard," Keiko said. "The 'first' event is ongoing throughout the entire Exams. We are therefore, technically speaking, in the middle of an event right now."

Everyone digested that for a moment.

"It's open to interpretation," Keiko granted. "Our victims could still file a complaint against us for fighting outside of an event. Depending on how it was handled, the complaint could end up in front of the Hokage himself." She paused, waiting until the wolfish grins had spread all the way around the room before adding, in a voice as dry as dust, "I doubt he would be overly bothered."

"So long as we don't kill or maim them," Noburi hurried to add. His adoptive sister gave him a nod of acknowledgement.

"So we get a bunch of these papers and then one of us turns one in so that we can find out where the next event starts," Yamamoto summarized. "Then everyone else follows them. That's the part that needs work—I'm positive we can beat plenty of these brats down, and we might be able to con them as well. We could get enough papers that each of us had one, but it would be more efficient if we didn't need to. How do we pass the information back?"

"Akamaru and I could try to track whoever turns it in," Inuzuka said doubtfully. "Especially if Akamaru marked their sandals beforehand to make it easier. It depends on what countermeasures the proctors are taking, though. If they make you waterwalk across a river or lake, it's going to break the trail. If they make you treehop then there's no trail to follow in the first place."

"They made little effort to conceal the location of the swamp event," Haruno noted. "Actually I bet the proctors were ordered to discuss it, repeatedly and in kinda-public areas, just so that everyone who wasn't completely clueless would be able to find it."

"They'll probably get more tight-lipped as the events go on," Akane said. "That proctor told Hazō that there were five events—four and then the tournament. The first event is the ongoing spycraft test, the second was the swamp, so we're already up to the second to last that isn't the tournament. I'd think it would start to get hard at this point."

"There are unlikely to be only five events," Nara said. "There are certain standard rules that are part of the Chūnin Exams accords—proctors must score fairly, cannot physically harm or unfairly disqualify contestants, that sort of thing. There's nothing that says they can't lie to us, although truly egregious lies would be grounds for a complaint and are therefore unlikely.

"My father warned me that the Exams typically take five to six weeks, with four of those being a break before the final tournament event. In that case, five events is about right—one to two days for each one, then a break to heal and train, then the final tournament. Some Exams, however, have been noticeably longer or shorter. This will be one of the long ones, and therefore will probably have more events." He stopped talking, then seemed to remember something. Turning to Neji, he said, "Given the weak military position that Mist finds itself in, it would be to their advantage to keep the Exams going as long as possible. Most or all of the Kage and senior jōnin from the entire Elemental Nations are in Mist right now and there is a peace accord in place. That means that Mist is safe against military assault because the attendees act as an ersatz defense force—no single nation will start a battle when all of the other nations are here and obligated by treaty to defend Mist. It also means that all of those Kage and senior ninja are not on the mainland, running their espionage and economic networks. While they are here the other nations have extra communication lag in their command loops, providing Mist an advantage. It would not surprise me at all if Mist tried to drag this out to eight weeks, or even more if they think they can get away with it."

Hazō exchanged nervous looks with Keiko and Noburi while Neji growled something inconsequential at Nara. Two months of Jiraiya's three-month temporary Hokageship had already elapsed. He had built up a lot of ill will among the major clans as a result of the way he had taken the hat, and that ill will would come home to roost if he had to step down without finding Naruto or producing some other, equally significant, rabbit from said hat. If the Exams kept him pinned down for a full month beyond the agreed-upon end of his term...Hazō had no idea what would happen. The clans certainly wouldn't evict Jiraiya from the role while he was actively in the middle of negotiations—it would be far too great a show of weakness—but the delay would only make them angrier. Either way, it would give them more unsupervised time back in Leaf to scheme and plot. Given that Team Uplift's political and economic future was strongly tied to Jiraiya's, and their former missing-nin status made them unpalatable to many senior Leaf ninja....

"Okay, well, we know that there's at least one more event before the tournament," Hazō said. "The Mizukage said that there would be forty-eight hours' notice before the tournament, but this next event starts in thirty-six—well, thirty-two now. I think Yamamoto nailed it: one of us should turn in a paper in order to get shown the target location, and then we follow them or they send word back. The question is how to make that work. Inuzuka, it sounded like you thought that tracking would be difficult?"

The boy nodded. "Yeah. Like Sakura said, I'd be amazed if they didn't have some sensible precautions in place to keep it from being too easy. Akamaru and I are good, but the watery terrain doesn't favor us and it's too easy for a ninja to break trail if they suspect they're being tracked, especially if they've had months to prepare."

"My insect allies can be used for tracking, but I too am uncertain of their reliability in these conditions," Aburame said. "Why? Because this area is covered in swamps and marshes, all of which have enormous insect populations. The pheromones are distinguishable from the ones my allies emit but they are so prevalent that they mask the scent. And, again, a skilled and prepared ninja could use water or air jutsu to periodically clear the air."

"Neji and I could follow at a distance, using our Byakugan," Hyūga said. "Our range is not long, though. If we wanted to maintain actual visual contact we would need to be closer than I would like. Better if the person being escorted dropped markers for us to follow. Something small but very distinctive."

"It would need to be something that the proctor wouldn't notice," her cousin added doubtfully. "I'm sure they aren't going to let us leave an obvious trail. They'll be watching for that."

"What about seals?" Hazō asked. "They glow to your eyes, right?"

The elder Hyūga looked at his younger cousin for confirmation before nodding. "Yes?"

"Well, I can make some that are very small. We wrap them around a pebble, waterproof them, and then you drop them as you go. If the proctors take you over water, all the better—the pebble sinks and is only visible to someone who can see the bottom of the water as easily as the top."

Everyone paused. More than a few blinks were blinked.

"That might be a lot of seals," Yamanaka said carefully. "You've been up for almost two days straight. I wouldn't want to be carrying any seal that you made before you got some sleep. I don't know how many you've already got that you're willing to sacrifice, but they took us two miles from the main group when we got our words. Dropping one seal every...thirty yards, maybe?" She glanced at Hinata and, after a moment, got a nod. "That would be, what, a couple hundred seals?"

"One hundred and eighteen," Nara said. "Although it would be wise to use more, in order to avoid breaks in the trail if one seal were damaged or lost. Regardless, the previous event demonstrated that Mist has seals for sale. We could simply buy them."

A look of combined rage and contempt flickered across Yamamoto's face so briefly that Hazō almost missed it. It left behind only the reserved-yet-friendly attentiveness that the other boy had shown every time Hazō had interacted with him.

"Seems doable," Noburi said. "I don't remember where those Night Light seals come from, but I'm sure I could ask around and get the name. We can pick up a few and see if it works, then get more if we think we'll need them. In the meantime, let's talk about how we get the papers. Like Hazō said, different approaches will show different skillsets. I'm thinking we should try to have at least one of our teams use each approach—stealth, infiltration, straight combat—to demonstrate that Leaf has versatility as well as power. That seem sensible to you guys?"

"Our team has a half-and-half option," Yamanaka pointed out. "Shikamaru and I can paralyze the enemy and make them cover their eyes. Then Chōji goes up to them and rifles through their pockets. Unless they have some special senses, there's no way for them to know for sure who did it to them."

"Nice!" Noburi said, offering a hand for a high five, which Yamanaka delivered with a laugh.

"Okay, who wants to take the stealth option?" Hazō asked, reminding himself to look around the group in general. Things were moving in the right direction but this whole inter-team alliance was still too new and fragile. It wouldn't do to let on that he'd already mentally categorized who should get which plan, as well as planned out with Keiko and Noburi how they would chivvy everyone into the appropriate roles.

It would be so nice not to need to go through this bullshit. To simply lay out his thinking and have people judge it on its merits instead of through the lens of their clan loyalties or hatreds, their personal pride, or whatever other bias ran their particular life. He'd actually floated the idea of trying Clear Communication no Jutsu with this group but both Keiko and Noburi had shot the idea down. CCnJ had only made things worse when he tried it with Minami, and none of the Gōketsu kids were willing to see that happen again. Especially not here, with this group of clan heirs and important people who were taking their first step towards the idea of active cooperation between groups larger than three people.

It was a long way from 'SuperTeam Leaf' to Hazō's dreamed-of 'Grand Unified Alliance of the Elemental Nations', but every journey began with a first step.

---

XP AWARD: 1

FP AWARD: Will happen in the next update

Vote time! What to do now?

Voting ends on Wednesday, February 22, 2018, at 12pm London time.

---

Author's Note: Haru rolled -12 on his Deceit check, the poor kid. Wasn't worth burning a Fate Point on, though.

Comments on the plan:

One part of the plan addressed how to handle the negotiations, even going so far as to frame it mechanically for purposes of social combat. I started to write that, even got to the point of rolling dice, and then realized that it just wasn't necessary. My breakdown is that everyone is smart enough to realize that they are better off collaborating to find the events, even if they then compete against each other inside them. There's simply no downside to it, apart from perhaps having to work with people who get on your nerves. Given that, there was no need to do a detailed social combat. I would, however, like to offer kudos for the amount of thought you put into it and for writing up the mechanical approach! That would have made my life a lot easier, so thanks for making the effort.

The one criticism that I have for the plan is that it was written out of sequence. It's a lot easier for me if I can start at the top and work my way down, writing as I go. Given that the last update ended with you in the clearing with all the other Leaf teams and that you specified you wanted to run your plans past Noburi and Keiko before proposing them, the logical chronological sequence would have been '(1) Socializing with other Leaf Teams' => '(2) Team Uplift Internal Strategy Discussion' => '(3) Report to Jiraiya' => '(4) Talk with the Rest of SuperTeam Leaf'. The order it was actually written in, however, was: 2, 4, 1, 3.

I'm really sorry that I let the weekend get away from me. There was some fun stuff in there that I would have loved to write. Regardless, you socialized with the other Leaf teams while picnicking and you talked with Jiraiya for about twenty minutes (which was all the time he had). He was pleased and amused with how you handled it, and was happy to infuse the three Goo Bomb seals that Hazō drew while they were talking. (It was all Hazō had time for, given a few minutes to set up and tear down his calligraphy kit plus interact during discussion.)

I still need to get with the other QMs on the answers to your questions, which I'll post here as a reminder. (They've already been put in QM chat.) @Velorien and @OliWhail: ping.

• Who did the other Leaf teams encounter and how did it go?
• Who do they think are the high-power dangerous teams to watch out for?
• How many seals did they bring in?
• How did other Teams locate the Exam?
• For any team who turned in word, put high priority on learning how proctors treated them and what measures were in place to prevent them from sending messages back.

This one I can answer now: "Were the other teams also told by the Proctors that there will be four events before the tournament in total and that our score will be cumulative?" The proctors did not volunteer that information but the answer was consistent for those who asked. The information has been spread around through all the Leaf teams, with the proviso that it might not be accurate.

 

[Velorien]

Interlude: Staying Loyal​

"I find myself concerned," Anna repeated patiently. Ordinarily, Shin had great respect for her powers of prediction, but he had been on tenterhooks since the end of the event, and clearly all the fidgeting had expended energy vital to the function of his brain.

"Chill, Spider-girl," Kiri drawled lazily, lounging back with the padding on her barrel as a peculiar pillow. Anna found herself once again attempting to calculate how many people would need to die before the nickname was finally forgotten.

"We're well ahead of the game here, and we ain't got a scratch on us. You hear what happened to Team Kanon?"

Anna shuddered involuntarily.

"My concern," she said after banishing the mental images, "is that we may not be playing the game we believe we are. Did you see the figurative cartload of seals Team Gōketsu delivered to the proctor?"

"Point," Shin conceded. Now they were here, he was once again practicing sitting still as a statue, his spine as upright as the tree behind him. One of these days, somebody needed to explain to him that a stance with no tells was a tell in itself, especially to anyone who knew him and his actual habitual body language.

"I'm a little worried about the Gōketsu trio too. Kiri, I know you're raring to get back in action"—he looked pointedly at her supine position—"but Anna's right—this is a good time to take stock before we work out our objectives for the next twenty-four hours. It's not like anyone's going to double back to the swamp to spy on us, which is more than I can say for the village proper, and you'll sense them even if they do. Anna, tell us what you're thinking."

"I find myself unable to reconcile Team Gōketsu's performance with their reputation as incompetents who fled the village rather than face a real challenge for the first time in their careers. Consider the audacity and the extraordinary success of Hidden Fortress."

"Not you too… It wasn't hidden—I mean, they actually made an effort to give away their location—and it wasn't a fortress either. I bet they just threw up some Earth Walls and called it a day. Remember when Instructor Ogawa raised that maze for our stalking exam? That is how you do on-the-spot construction."

"A moot point," Anna said coolly. She had not fared well In the Labyrinth of a Thousand Traps, and the instructors had jostled her paralysed body quite severely on the way out. "The fact is that the Mori Keiko I know could not have manipulated her way into the position of a Kage's daughter. Indeed, she should have dragged down any team with her in it. I suspect the same can be said of the other two."

"And you think that means they're hiding some kind of special power," Shin concluded. "A hidden advantage that is going to royally screw us over if we follow the original plan and try to take them out."

"Pull back the messenger bird," Kiri said suddenly. "You know the girl? This is intel, Anna. You know, the thing you lecture us about every other week?"

"I could hardly be unaware of her past existence," Anna said reluctantly, "clanswomen as we once were."

"Nuh-uh," Kiri said with that damnable intuition of hers. "You know something. Fess up, Spider-girl. It's for the good of the team."

"It's nothing important," Anna said. "We were friends once. That is all."

Kiri gave a meaningful whistle. "Ladies and gentlemen, if I can call Shin that without cracking up laughing, we have ourselves an in."

Anna suppressed a scowl. "Allow me to revise that statement. I thought we were friends once. I learned of my error. There is no connection that one could remotely describe as an 'in'. Can we drop this subject now?"

Kiri gave an evil grin. "Ooh, Big Sis is sensing a story. Sorry, Spider-girl, you ain't getting out of this one now."

"You don't have to if you don't want to, Anna," Shin said peaceably. "Kiri will probably hound you for the rest of your days if you decide to withhold this information that could help out our team in the Chūnin Exam, as well as help us understand you better, but for my part I'm not going to press you."

Stupid best friends and their stupid knowledge of her emotional levers. Still, Shin was good at keeping secrets because he believed it made him more like the Seven Shinobi Swordsmen, and Kiri was good at keeping secrets because she was convinced that being the only person to know something made her special. And after everything they'd been through together, what was one cripplingly humiliating admission more or less?

"I had no meaningful knowledge of her until I encountered her at the Academy," Anna began. "She was a withdrawn individual. She did not socialise with others, but spent all of her time alone. In my past self's terms, she 'kept her own counsel' and it made her 'the coolest person ever'. That she was the sister of the clan hero did not harm her position either."

Anna cringed a little as she remembered her younger self. Childish. Naïve. Possessed of a lamentable tendency to babble when excited, and inclined to overuse words such as "awesome", "badass" and "supercool" in favour of an actual vocabulary.

"I admired Keiko," she said bitterly. "I made every effort to befriend her, and while in retrospect I believe she likely tolerated me at best, she did not refuse when I invited her to spend time together." She had the attention of her object of adoration, and they had been some of the happiest days of her childhood.

"However, all of that ended with a single incident. She had grudgingly condescended to be dragged along to a game played with several other girls. There was a dare."

"What kind of dare?" Shin asked, intrigued.

Through pure force of will, Anna did not blush. "That is immaterial."

It was, of course, not immaterial at all. Even knowing all along that they were only playing and it didn't mean anything, there was still a special sense of trust in that moment. Something that, she found with the wisdom of age, she might now label as intimacy.

"And then she pushed me away," Anna said, wilfully skipping over the crucial part of the narrative. If nothing else, there was a boy present. "She screamed and pushed me away, as if I was something disgusting, and she ran. And when I came back, the others asked me how I could have been so impossibly bad at it."

Keiko had never apologised. Never said a word about the incident. As if it had been natural to react that way. A matter of course.

"That was when I understood that her aloofness was not a trait to be admired. It was the primary manifestation of her being a freak. And once I was in possession of that knowledge, I found it essential to share it with others. I developed new friends quickly once I parted ways with Keiko, and together we made sure to teach her her place.

"She never fought back," Anna added, "if you desire tactical information. She only hid like a coward."

Shin was giving her a horrified look. But there had been nothing wrong with her actions. It had been necessary to enforce the natural consequences of Keiko's behaviour. It had been the right thing to do. Freaks were not to be tolerated. Anyone in her position would have done the same.

"Anna," Shin said slowly, "that's… that wasn't right."

"Chill, dude," Kiri said. "That's just what the Academy is like when you're a girl. Not everybody can be top of the heap like I was, but everybody's got to play their part. If you don't socialise, if you push everybody away"—Anna didn't flinch—"then you're dragging the whole group down. You can't hurt everyone around you like that and expect nobody to hurt you back."

"I don't like it," Shin said. "There's a word for doing what Anna did, and it's 'bullying'. I'm sorry, but that's just… not right."

"Get off her case, Shin," Kiri said, rising to prop herself on her elbows. "Nobody forced this Keiko kid to spit on the community the rest of Anna's year was building. Nobody forced her not to fight back either. If she had, she might at least have earned some respect. Look at how Anna didn't have any trouble fitting in once she started making the right choices."

"Regardless," Anna said sharply, "my point is that Keiko is weak. She lacks the social skills necessary to cooperate with others. She could not have engineered whatever master plan earned her a place at the Hokage's side, nor an exam strategy designed around large-scale teamwork. There is somebody else standing behind her success, and for as long as they go unidentified, I find myself unwilling to challenge Team Gōketsu."

Shin nodded. "Yeah, that's fair. We're not done talking about the bullying thing, but you're right that not failing the exam is more important right now."

He paused to think, unconsciously moving out of his statue position. "If we eliminate the girl, that leaves one of the other two. Kiri, do you know anything about Gōketsu Noburi?"

Kiri shrugged. "Boring. A bit fat. Not ugly, but you could take one look at him and tell he was a loser with no future, which I guess is ironic now. He followed me around like a lovesick puppy for a bit. I tried to let him down gently, but I didn't try that hard, if you know what I mean. The moron confessed to me in public, and I had a rep to maintain.

"Before you ask, that ain't an 'in' either. I have my dignity, and sucking up to the likes of him is so far beneath me you couldn't dig to it with Hiding Like a Mole."

"Wasn't about to suggest it," Shin said with that light voice he used when he was blatantly lying. "But the general upshot is that he's not the team genius either, right?"

"Ha!" Kiri snorted. "Not on your life. But are you sure Spider-girl ain't overthinking it? I mean, their big super-team's got Nara Shikamaru. Ain't that enough?"

Mmm, Nara Shikamaru…

Anna snapped out of it before Kiri's intuition could kick in.

"I find it doubtful that this is a Nara plan. The Nara are all about the Ino-Shika-Chō. They're supposed to be strongest that way, and adding additional members would only dilute a dynamic refined over centuries. Hidden Fortress was too risky to be their style, and the same can be said of the inefficiency involved in dividing seals across such an extraordinary number of individuals. I am confident that Nara's team would have fared better were they to forgo the alliance, or at least cut it down to the most valuable members.

"What of Kurosawa?" she looked at Shin. "That one is definitely yours to analyse."

"A traitor born of a traitor," Shin narrowed his eyes. "His mother turned her back on all of us when the clan needed her most. She had everything—all of the wealth and power of the heir to the clan—and she gave it up for no better reason than to marry some commoner she happened to fall in love with."

"How appalling," Anna agreed. It might have been the most romantic thing she'd ever heard.

"Then when she had a son, she betrayed us again. A child of the primary line, descended directly from Kurosawa Nozomu himself. The clan was ready to welcome him back with open arms—and she taught him to say no."

"Why'd you want him anyway?" Kiri asked. "It's not like there aren't enough of you already."

Shin didn't take the bait. Instead, he looked around them, and then lowered his voice.

"Because Lady Ren is single, and has always been single, and has shown about as much interest in men as Anna here."

"Hey!"

"Unless and until she has a child of her own, Gōketsu Hazō has the purest Kurosawa blood, and if Hana hadn't made him turn down our invitation, he'd have been next in line to rule the clan. Instead, things get complicated."

"You sure you should be spilling the beans like this, Shin? This sounds like some serious shit."

Shin shrugged. "I promise you anything that your clan heads already know all this. I bet it's why they had such an easy time supporting Lady Ren's candidacy for Mizukage—they're gambling that when it comes, the transition of power will take up all our resources long enough for somebody else to grab the hat without a struggle."

"Serious shit," Kiri repeated. "Also irrelevant shit. Gōketsu Hazō can have the blood of the Sage of Six Paths flowing through his veins for all I care. What do you know about him?"

"Honestly, probably not much more than Anna would. Bright guy, crap at keeping his mouth shut. The way the Kurosawa are taught to learn is that we take the best of everything around us and we make it our own. We find the best sources of knowledge, and we copy that knowledge so fully that it becomes part of who we are. Instead, Hazō was constantly correcting the teachers, coming up with his own ideas and trying to teach them to all these experts with decades of experience. And then of course the teachers got pissed off with him, and once they were in a bad mood they were that much worse at teaching the rest of us. Hazō was too self-centred to ever notice.

"And you know what the worst thing was?" Shin asked. "Sometimes he was right. If he'd just been a little smoother about it, found a way to share his ideas without challenging the teachers' authority, I reckon our whole year would have been better for it, and maybe others too. I don't mind admitting that I still use a few moves that I copied off him. But Hazō never got that having clever ideas isn't as important as being able to persuade people to use them. Instead, most of the time he just disrupted our learning. Some would even say he brought shame to the name of the Kurosawa, but the stick up my ass isn't quite that big just yet."

Kiri opened her mouth, but Anna sensed the direction the conversation was about to go, and decided to pre-empt her.

"In other words, Shin, you would identify him as the mastermind behind the current scenario."

Shin was quiet for a few seconds.

"Yeah, Anna, I think I would. 'Mastermind' might be pushing it, but I can see Hazō coming up with some genius idea that, if he lucked into being in just the right place at just the right time, could buy his way into Leaf—assuming Leaf was in the market for recruiting traitorous missing-nin in the first place."

"Which is what this comes down to," Anna concluded. "Conventional wisdom, as well as heavy hints from our superiors, suggest that Team Gōketsu are vile traitors who must be punished for the injury they have dealt our respective clans. And it seems we have now established that Gōketsu Hazō is our primary target. Eliminate him, and the other two will be helpless."

"You're right," Shin nodded slowly. "But now I look back, I can't help but wonder. Did Keiko strike you as a potential traitor, Anna?"

Keiko. She was a traitor, here and now. There was no point doubting facts. But looking back, looking at everything… Anna found herself wondering why. There must have been some compelling reason, like greed or cowardice or even ideology. It would be absurd to suggest that Anna's own behaviour had driven Keiko to betrayal. What she'd done… it had been necessary, and right, and in any case what kind of weakling would run away from their village over a little thing like that?

The thought caught on some jagged edge of her mind. If Keiko had died out there in the wilderness, if she'd been eaten by a chakra beast or stabbed in the back by her fellow traitors or beheaded by Captain Zabuza, would it have been Anna's fault? If Keiko had survived by some strange chance and was now in a position any shinobi would envy, was that in spite of Anna's actions? Where did that leave Anna now?

"I don't know," Anna finally said. "The point is moot, and there is nothing to be gained in pondering hypotheticals."

"Hmph," Kiri snorted. "I can tell you now that Noburi was no traitor in waiting. Not enough initiative, not enough imagination. I bet somebody else pulled him in, and he decided to betray the village through peer pressure. Sounds spineless enough for him."

"Somebody pulled him in," Shin repeated. "Was that somebody Hazō? Was turning traitor his latest bright idea?

"Anna," he said with a dose of urgency, "what else do we know about the Gōketsu? Are there other traitors?"

Anna tapped into the Frozen Skein briefly, just that light touch necessary to clear her mind from wondering about paths not taken and replace them with cold, hard data.

"Two," she said a moment later, unfolding her hands from her lap where they inevitably went when she used her Bloodline Limit. "Inoue Mari, a Mist jōnin, and Kagome, past affiliation unknown. Inoue is now married to the Hokage and stepmother to Team Gōketsu, and Kagome has been presented as the Hokage's cousin, details missing."

"A traitorous jōnin and a mysterious foreign shinobi," Shin said thoughtfully. "It could be coincidence, missing-nin banding together, or maybe…"

"Shin, my boy," Kiri said pushing herself into a sitting position now. "Is this the part where I remind you that they're all filthy traitors whose very existence is a great big 'fuck you' to our clans? Who cares about their background?"

"I know they're traitors, Kiri. At any time, they could have chosen to come back to Mist and face justice for their crimes. Or they could've done what other missing-nin do, and not join our greatest enemy who's constantly looking for ways to wipe this village off the face of the earth. I'm not a sympathiser.

"But Hazō was a mummy's boy through and through. It was public knowledge. It would have taken something big for him to leave her behind, and something even bigger to make him sign up with the people who want her dead along with the rest of us. Is it so wrong to be curious about what that is?"

"Aw, hell no," Kiri groaned. "You want us to go and talk to them."

"Vetoed," Anna said instantly.

"Veto overruled," Shin smoothly replied.

"Who died and made you team leader?" Anna snapped.

"Ahem," Shin cleared his throat. "'I would rather perform oral sex on Captain Ayanami and every one of his horde of catamites—sorry, I mean fanboys—than let that insufferable Wakahisa bitch order me around.' Sound familiar?"

"Ah, the good old days," Kiri sighed. "Me, I'm glad we put Shin in charge. I think I'd drown myself in my barrel if I was the one stuck doing Retsu-sensei's paperwork for her."

"But there's no hurry, right?" Anna asked desperately. "Surely it is more of a priority to secure our lead over the other teams than to indulge random whims of unproductive curiosity?"

"Chill, Spider-girl. If it comes down to you facing off with your ex, Shin and I have your back all the way. Let him do his diplomacy shtick for a while, and once he's had enough we can crush Team Gōketsu like the dishonourable bastards they are. Bam! Closure for your childhood trauma, victory in the exams and massive brownie points with you-know-who all in one go."

"She is not my ex, O insufferable Wakahisa bitch, and the only childhood trauma here is the blunt force that must have been applied repeatedly to your cranium as a baby. Now can we please set aside this tomfoolery in favour of practical concerns?" Anna might not have been a Kurosawa, but deadpan snark was one skill which she was proud to have made her own.

"All right," Shin said. "Motion tabled. Let's talk word halves and proctor signatures."

"Let's." Perhaps if Anna could keep their team sufficiently busy, somebody else might eliminate the Gōketsu before they had a chance to meet.

 

[eaglejarl]

Chapter 165: Team Leaf Order Takeout​

"The mugging option is pretty easy for any of us," Hazō said. "We're all kickass fighters, but we want to show that Leaf can do more than that. I had a thought on that...it might be a bad one, but I at least want to put it on the table. If anyone doesn't like it, I'll—"

"Just tell us!" Haruno said, clearly exasperated.

"Okay. You know that Mari-sensei is an infiltrator, right? Well, she's trained me a lot in deception—microexpressions, body language, speech rhythms, that kind of thing. I could try to go up to enemy teams and pose as a proctor, demanding to see their word-half. When they produce it I switch it for a fake and walk away. That would be a lot easier if I had your genjutsu backing me up, so I was thinking maybe you, me, and Keiko could be one team and Akane, Yamamoto, and Noburi could be another?" He turned to the other boy. "Yamamoto, from what I saw during sparring your lightning jutsu are crazy powerful, but they look like they take a lot of chakra. If you're with Noburi he could keep you topped up between fights. The three of you would be an absolutely brutal combat team and for this specific mission it feels like Haruno has more to offer to the deception plan. What do you think?"

The three teammates exchanged a quick debate conveyed in raised eyebrows and shrugged shoulders before turning back to Hazō. "Works for us," Yamamoto said.

"Great," Hazō said, letting out a sigh of relief. He hadn't been sure how that was going to go down. "So, who wants to take the stealth option?" He reminded himself to look around the group in general. Things were moving in the right direction but this whole inter-team alliance was still too new and fragile. It wouldn't do to let on that he'd already mentally categorized who should get which role, as well as planned out with Keiko and Noburi how they would chivvy everyone into the appropriate slot.

"That's probably us," Inuzuka said. "We're a tracking and intelligence-gathering team. Not that we don't kick enormous amounts of ass—"

"coughthroatpunch," Haruno pretend-coughed. Inuzuka tried and failed to set her on fire with his mind.

"Speaking of enormous amounts of ass, Sakura, are you enjoying those dango?" Aburame asked, his voice a model of friendly concern.

"Meeeyyoww," said Yamanaka, amused.

"Ooh, look at that!" Haruno said, grinning. "Mr. Screamypants steps up to defend his buddy! It's good of you, Shino—can't let a teammate go into battle defenseless, right? Even if it's just a battle of wits."

"Be nice, you two," Akimichi scolded. "We're supposed to be planning."

"Like I was saying," Inuzuka growled, "our team should probably take the stealth option. Shino can plant bugs on a team, we follow them until Hinata says that there's no proctors around, then Shino and his bugs drain them dry while Akamaru and I keep an eye and a nose out for proctors or whatever."

Hazō hesitated, trying to figure out how to frame the obvious response. Fortunately, Nara stepped into the gap.

"That is not stealth," Nara said. "That is combat with intelligent application of your unique advantages. Stealth means that the enemy does not even realize they were robbed until later. In honesty, none of us are well suited for stealth operations. This is not a failing on our part, it is simply that we were not trained for it; it is more important to teach genin how to fight so that we survive our first missions. Serious infiltration and stealth-related skills are typically acquired after achieving chūnin rank. Kiba, your team are uniquely qualified as hunter-nin and ambush assault, and are enormously dangerous in that role. Hinata's Byakugan also gives you some intelligence-gathering capability in that she can see through walls. That does not mean that your team is qualified for theft.

"That said, your team and mine are the closest to stealth that we have. The strategy that Ino described earlier is also not really a stealth tactic, but it at least disguises who targeted the enemy...unless, of course, they are familiar with the Nara and Yamanaka family jutsu. Even if they are, we still have their word-halves and we've done nothing against the rules."

"No," Keiko said. "You should be on psyops."

Nara nodded thoughtfully. "Interesting. Attribution is an issue."

She shrugged. "Hokage. Keep it to minor villages."

"And no property damage."

"I swear by the Sage's mighty beard, if the two of you don't start using complete sentences I am going to pour fire ants in your shoes while you sleep," Yamanaka said.

Nara rolled his eyes. "She was suggesting that our team should engage in psychological warfare instead of direct combat."

"Yes, thank you," Yamanaka said tartly. "I got that part. More details, please."

Nara sighed. "It's very simple. All we have to do is...."

o-o-o-o​

Spoiler: Dice; spoilers for the action

Chōji is hiding on the roof with orders not to even look over the edge unless called for. Ino and Shikamaru are sitting at the outdoor cafe, henged as a grandmother and her middle-aged son. A team from Fang wanders by. Are our heroes spotted?
Fang ninja team, highest Alertness: 32
Ino/Shika, lowest Stealth. Tag 'Just a Face in the Crowd'. Tag '(Henged) Too Old for this Shit': 33

Victory! They are not spotted and the enemy get the Aspect 'Flat-Footed'. I'm ruling that under these circumstances Ino cannot miss with her jutsu so it's simply a question of whether she can take control or not. Despite being shown as a series of rounds the combat takes place almost instantly.

Hachō Shirō, what is your Resolve? [QM rolls dice]. You suck. G'night.
Hachō Shirō, Resolve + 4dF: 20
Yamanaka Ino, Psycho Mind Transmission Jutsu + tag Hachō's "Not a Mindwalker" Aspect + tag "Flat-Footed": 51
Ino wins by 31 so Shirō takes 11 stress. He's done.

Okay, apparently 'a series of rounds' means '1 round'. Whatevs.

Yamanaka Ino, Deception so that Shirō's team don't realize he's been taken over: 18
Reroll! (-1 FP)
Yamanaka Ino, Deception so that Shirō's team don't realize he's been taken over: 25
Teammate #1: 24 So close!
Teammate #2: 15 Booo!

Okay, scratch one Fang team.

"Got one," Ino whispered, looking over Shikamaru's shoulder to the east while seeming to be fully absorbed in the mug of tea that her henged-grandmotherly hands were cupping. "Fang team. Already look pissed."

Shikamaru's eyes flicked over her shoulder, searching quickly through the faces. The sun was lowering on the horizon, throwing delightful amounts of shadow everywhere, but the street was still busy with civilians doing late shopping. When they sat down at the cafe there had been one proctor leaning against the wall of the HQ building two doors down and across the street but no other ninja in sight. A few had drifted by since then—proctors, regular Mist ninja, and a few Exam contestant teams. There'd never been a good opportunity, though.

"Clear," Shikamaru replied softly, pouring himself another mug.

Ino leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands. It wasn't an entirely natural position for the grandmotherly figure she wore, but it was a lot more subtle than keeling over. "Psycho Mind Transmission Jutsu," she murmured, keeping her eyes locked on the strawberry-blond ninja with the muscular arms and the scowl on his face.

She ignored the familiar tearing-paper sensation of her family's jutsu as she ripped her consciousness out of her body and flung it across the gap to her target. The entry was as unpleasant as always; no human body was without pain, ever, but everyone got used to their own particular pains. The persistent cramp in the shoulder from less-than-perfect posture, the sore muscles from overtraining, the mild but persistent ache in the joints as a result of chakra-boosted speed exceeding what the human body was designed for. Every person's pain was unique, and adjusting to someone else's was always unpleasant. Still, she was old friends with reentry pain and it didn't even slow her down.

?! said the awareness that lived in the body, struggling to erect barriers against this strange assailant who attacked from an angle never before imagined.

!!! she replied, smashing through his pathetic attempts at defense with contemptuous ease. She packed all the fragments of him into a ball and tossed it into the mental closet at the back of every human mind, the one in which unpleasant thoughts and childhood nightmares were kept. Conquest complete, she spread herself through the body and took control.

The body was interesting; taller than her own, but with a surprisingly low center of gravity for a man. The arms were longer than hers and it took a moment of puzzling over the body's kinesthetic sense before she could be confident in where everything was. The chakra system was, as usual, bizarre. She wasn't sure what elemental nature he had, but it definitely wasn't the same as hers. His chakra bucked and whirled at her touch, pooling in some places and lashing out in others. She smoothed it down, chained it in bindings forged from her will, and compelled it to flow smoothly through his coils.

"Shirō?" one of the boy's teammates asked. "You okay?"

"Hm?" Ino asked, suddenly noticing that she'd stopped walking. "Yeah, just distracted. Thinking about this bullshit exam thing. There's a proctor over there, I want to ask him." Without another word she strode to the man with the green armband, 'her' confused teammates following in her wake.

"Oy!" she called as she walked up. "Water guy! How about telling us where this next stupid event is?"

The proctor lazily turned his head to look at her. He was chewing something—tobacco, perhaps—and his jaws continued their bovine mastication even as he considered Ino's captive body.

"Piss off, kid," the proctor said, rolling his head back to look straight ahead again in obvious dismissal.

"Hey!" Ino shouted, crossing her arms. "No need to be rude, squidfucker."

"Shirō, what are you doing?" asked the brunette on Ino's left. She sounded alarmed; good. Alarmed was much better than suspicious. "Excuse him sir, he's not feeling well." She took Ino's arm, clearly anxious to be gone.

"I'm fine!" Ino snapped, wrenching her stolen arm out of the other girl's grip. "I'm just sick of this bullshit! The Chūnin Exams are supposed to be fair for everyone, but this? This is bullshit. We're supposed to guess where they're putting everything while the Mist kids are just getting told? Mist is totally cheating."

The proctor's head snapped around. "What did you say?"

"I said you're cheating," Ino said defiantly, forcing herself to stand like an angry boy instead of an angry girl. "You know your teams aren't good enough to beat us so you're making the events impossible to find and then telling your people where to go while we thrash around!"

The girl on Ino's left blinked. "Shirō, what are you doing? We found the event already...."

Of course they had.

"Yeah, but we shouldn't have had to!" Ino improvised. "Leaf hosts it, Sand hosts it, anyone hosts it except for these losers and we have sensible contests that show who's better...and it hasn't been them for five years now. They host it, they know they suck like a two-bit whore so they do this bullshit."

"How about we knock twenty points off your total score for round one?" the proctor asked. "Now get lost before I take you in."

"For what, telling the truth?" Ino demanded. "I've been hearing that's a problem for you Mist assholes. Your last Kage had a problem with lying, didn't he? Lots of lies to his people, to his ninja, telling you that you were some kind of 'master race' of ninja, the best in the world. Rings a little hollow after he went down like such a pussy." She waited, wondering if the barb had gone home; every village told its ninja that they were the best, so it was a safe guess that Yagura had done so. She just wished she knew how he had actually died, since it would let her twist the knife a lot deeper.

She watched carefully as the proctor's face changed. He'd been irritated when she started, but irritated in the way that a parent was irritated when a bratty toddler kept tugging at their pants leg. Now his eyes had gone flat, real anger leeching in at the edges.

"Listen, brat—"

"Oh, shut the fuck up, you worthless piece of crap," Ino snapped, folding her arms and fighting to keep Shirō chained up in the closet. He'd been struggling since the moment she took over, but he was freaking out hearing the words she was making him say. "Go home to your mamma, water boy, and tell her to wipe the milk off your lip next time you suck." She delicately stroked one finger along Shirō's stolen lips as though dabbing up a bit of milk.

"Shirō, what the fuck are you doing?!" her male teammate demanded. "Sir, we're very sorry. Please excuse my friend, he's—"

"Stop kissing up to them!" Ino snapped. "They're a bunch of second-raters who used to be impressive but now they're nothing. They couldn't even hold onto their own people—those Gōketsu kids and a whole bunch of their friends got so disgusted with the place that they left! Ran off to Leaf because the people there aren't fucking psychos."

"That's it," the proctor snapped, grabbing her wrist. "You're done. Let's—"

Ino put everything she had into the punch, turning from the hips and lifting with her thighs. A short uppercut, hidden below the grabbing arm, smashing up under the ribs and knocking the proctor back. "No, I won't be your fucking catamite, you disgusting pedo!" she shouted, raising both arms in a wide gesture designed to attract attention; up and down the street, heads snapped around to watch the scene. "I don't need your help to win!"

She went forward, hands up in a horribly sloppy guard stance that left about six open lines of attack, and started raining blows on the proctor. Punches and knees and kicks, all of them sloppy but powerful. None of them came even close to landing—the proctor slapped them away effortlessly and smashed her in the chest with a heelstomp that threw her back. She overrode the body's instincts to tuck and roll, to slap out of the fall, to keep the head away from the ground. Instead, she threw the head back, making the impact even worse than it would have been. She barely managed to release the body before impact; the world went dark and wobbly around her as she struggled out of the stolen flesh, grasping furiously at all the threads of herself that were tangled throughout what was now a motionless sack of meat on the ground. She followed the imagined cord back to her body, meeting her own aches and pains with the satisfaction of greeting an old friend.

"Really, Ino?" Shikamaru asked disapprovingly. "You couldn't make him angry so you had to go to the pedo ruse? You're slipping."

"Hey, I didn't have a lot of time, okay? I didn't know squat about any of them and the proctor was too darn calm for our good."

Shikamaru sighed.

o-o-o-o​

Spoiler: dice; spoilers for the action

Hazō, Deception, 24 + 4dF: 18
Reroll! -1FP
Hazō, Deception, 24 + 4dF + tag "Respect Mah Authoritai! (Because I'm a Proctor)" + tag "Disturbing Announcement": 36
Enemy team, Alertness + 4dF -3 (generalized CM to account for minor wounds, tiredness, etc): 22 Sucks to be you, guys. Not letting you use a reroll on a passive check, though.

Sakura, Maneuver to create Aspect 'Distracted by the Sexy'. Deception + 4dF: 23
Hironori, Resolve: 17
Eisuke, Resolve: 18
Noa, Resolve: 13
Wow, the dice hate y'all.

Sakura, Genjutsu, ? + 4dF: 44
Enemy team, Alertness + 4dF -3: 22 Again? Sucks a lot to be you, but still not letting you use a reroll.
Aspect "Yep, That's My Word" created!

Hazō, Sleight of Hand, (0.75 * Deception) + tag "Yep, That's My Word" + invoke "Respect Mah Authoritai! (Because I'm a Proctor)" [-1 FP] + tag "Distracted By the Sexy": 27
Enemy team, Alertness + 4dF -3: 40 Hah! Friggin' finally, a good roll.

Initiative:

• Keiko (has been holding her actions throughout)
• Sakura
• Hazō [Tired]
• Noa [Tired]
• Hironori [Tired]
• Eisuke [Mild Consequence]

Keiko: holds action

Sakura and Hazō: Supplemental (activate Goo Bomb), Move (flee)

Keiko: Supplemental x2 (Activate Air Dome). Combat: Prime low-powered explosive tag inside the dome in order to make sure the Dome seals are destroyed. Move: Flee

Enemy team: Fails. I thought I was going to roll for this, decided not to bother.

"Hey! You three, get over here!"

Noa's head snapped around to where a pair of proctors were waving them over. A man, stocky, perhaps in his early thirties, sandy blond hair, and a small but remarkably ugly wart not completely hidden by his collar. She'd seen him at the initial announcement; he wasn't the one who had taken her away to create her word, but he'd been taking people from near her. The woman behind him was new; tall, blonde, and stacked like a wagon going to market. Noa could practically hear Hironori's and Eisuke's tongues fall out of their heads at the sight. Sighing, she led the boys to their next opportunity for self-humiliation.

"Yes sir, ma'am?" Noa asked as her team reached the proctors. "What can we do for you?"

"Word check," the man growled. "Some of you bright sprogs are trying to counterfeit word-halves so that you don't have to actually do the work of finding the next event. Show me yours, girl."

"I'll need to see yours too, boys," the woman said, stepping slightly to the side so she was only in Noa's peripheral vision. Her voice was absolutely unfair, a musky purr that made Noa hate her instantly.

"Yes, ma'am!" the boys said, unslinging their packs and scrambling around for the papers.

Noa sighed and reached into her jacket for the pouch that she wore on a harness against her stomach. Why did this have to happen now? After forty-eight hours of fighting and dodging critters in the damn swamp, all she wanted was a bath, some dinner, and about a billion hours of sleep. Instead, their sensei had kept them busy for over an hour doing the after-action report, then insisted they spend another hour debriefing with the other Rock teams. Then it had taken forever to get a turn at the bath and now they were finally going to get some food, but no, the proctors had to turn up. Much more of this and her stomach was going to declare war on her spine.


He had several torn-up papers in his left hand; she caught flashes of green ink as he took hers, unfolded it, and held it up next to the rest, at arm's length and near eye level. He frowned and shook his head, then lowered them down so he could shuffle the top paper on the stack to the bottom and hold them up again. Once again, he shook his head and shuffled the next half-page down to the bottom.

"May I ask what you're checking for, sir?"

"Forgery," the proctor snapped. "We've had no less than six people trying to turn in fake matches to these halves"—he flapped the stack of papers in his left hand for a moment, then lowered his hands so he could shuffle to the next paper. "The Mizukage ruled that anyone carrying one of the fakes is disqualified."

"Well, boys, looks like you're doing fine," the female proctor purred; Noa glanced over just in time to see her take a deep breath and give Hironori and Eisuke a smile and a wink. Irritated and carefully not examining why, she turned back to her own proctor.

Just in time to see him try to swap her sheet for the bottom one on the stack.

"Hey! Give that back!" Noa shouted, lunging towards the proctor.

"Bonfire!" the male proctor shouted, dropping a small red pebble before turning and leaping up the side of the building nearest them. The woman was right on his heels, another red pebble falling from her hand as she went.

Of her team, Noa was first off the mark, fight-or-flight washing away the exhaustion of no sleep. She was halfway up the building when the pebbles hit the ground and erupted, throwing iridescent goop everywhere. She was barely out of the blast radius, but Hironori and Eisuke weren't so lucky; from behind her she heard squelching sounds and cries of "Hey!", but she couldn't stop to help. She needed that paper or she'd be disqualified!

She came over the edge of the building to see the two proctors were already halfway across the next roof. A third person, a young woman with wild green hair and a Sand forehead protector, had clearly just jumped from the roof Noa was standing on and was racing after the fleeing 'proctors'. For just a moment Noa allowed herself to hope that the other woman was a real proctor out to catch the fakes, but she pushed that thought aside. Her luck was never that good. This woman was almost certainly a confederate, meaning it was going to be three-on-one odds. Well, fine. They weren't allowed to kill her and she was already going to be DQ'd if she didn't catch them. Besides, if they thought that numbers were enough to defeat her...well, they might not like what happened next.

Still, first step in making tiger stew is to catch the tiger. Noa raced across the rooftop at full chakra-boosted speed, bracing herself to leap at the edge of the—

{{{blackness}}}

"...Noa?"

The noise was very far away and hard to understand.

"Noa, come on, sis. Wake up."

She was lying down and half a dozen ninja were crowding around her. Four of them were two blurry copies each of her brothers, the last two or three were a medic-nin in his professional coat.

"Wh' happ'n?"

"We don't know," Eisuke said. "It took us a few seconds to get loose from the goo. When we got to the roof you were lying unconscious about thirty feet from the far edge. There was a charred area in front of you, as though a low-power explosive tag went off. It was weird though...the edges of the blast circle were sharp, like the explosion went so far and then just stopped."

Noa pondered this.

"There'za wall," she slurred. "Invis'ble. Ran inna it."

"Headfirst, apparently," the medic-nin said with a disapproving click of the tongue. "Fortunately, your forehead protector took the impact. You're going to be a very unhappy young lady tomorrow, but you'll live." He scrawled some notes on a page and then handed her a dozen twists of paper. "Take one of these three times a day, with food. Drink plenty of water, eat, get some sleep. You'll be fine in a few days."

"Thanks, doc," Hironori said. "We were really scared there for a bit."

"Yes, well, be more careful next time. Now, get out of my sick bay."

o-o-o-o​

"Hey, welcome back," Noburi said. "We were talking about sending out search parties."

"Oh?" Hazō asked, dropping down on the pile of cushions around the low table on which dinner rested. Someone, probably someone whose name rhymed with 'Hōji', had piled it high with noodles, dango, fruit, bowls of rice, and what looked like half a dozen chickens worth of kebabs. Two pitchers, one with milk and one with water, sat on either end with beads of cold condensation running down the sides. Hazō gratefully plowed into the bounty.

"We were not worried," Akane said, smiling. "We all had confidence in you." She rested a hand briefly on Hazō's back in greeting and reassurance.

"So, how did you do?" Hyūga Neji demanded.

"One," Hazō said, gulping down some chicken and quickly grabbing for the pitcher of milk. The sauce on the chicken was apparently made out of lava. "Noburi, what did you do to the food?"

Noburi raised his hands. "Wasn't me, man. That's what they ordered."

"Gaaah," Hazō said, rolling the rice around his mouth in a so-far futile attempt to soak up the heat. Tears were coming out of his eyes and his nose was running.

"How did it go?" Yamanaka asked, politely handing Hazō a cloth for his nose.

"Quite well," Keiko said. "They spotted the switch but we had no trouble escaping with the word."

Haruno laughed. "You should have seen it. Me and Fumble-Fingers here go running by with these guys right on our tail. Our quiet friend here watches us go by, taps three seals, then comes after us. The chick we ripped off comes flying over the edge of the building, runs after us...and slams into this invisible dome. Dropped her like a sack of potatoes after you cut off their granupositors."

"Nice!" Inuzuka laughed, leaning in for a high-five.

"Still, only one word, huh?" Hyūga said, smiling.

Keiko shrugged. "We could not find more targets after that first group. I note that, although Hazō failed to accomplish a difficult sleight of hand that he had only ten minutes to learn, he successfully conned three chūnin candidates into handing over their word halves."

"We had trouble finding targets as well," Akane said. "The other teams are probably in bed by now. Everyone was tired after the swamp."

"Still...only one, huh?" Hyūga said again, trying and failing to hide the smug. "We got three. Took out a team from Wind."

"On the other hand," Haruno said thoughtfully, "while you were out punching people like the very straightforward person you are, our team demonstrated infiltration skills. Shikamaru, didn't you say those are things people typically learn after they become chūnin?"

Nara studiously ignored her, refusing to be drawn in.

"Don't worry, Neji," Haruno said with false reassurance. "I'd be happy to teach you some things, if you'd like. I'm sure you can become a big strong ninja like us if you just eat all your broccoli."

Hyūga's glare utterly failed to set Haruno on fire, but it came close.

---

XP AWARD: 1

FP AWARD: 2

Vote time! What to do now? In-game it's about 7pm. You're at dinner with friends in your barracks room. You, Noburi, and Keiko will be sleeping alone in here, so if there are things you want to discuss in private then the after-dinner hours are a good option. (The plan had a discussion about Haru which would fit well there.) Presumably you'll want to sleep before too much longer; Noburi and Keiko could get away with not doing so, but Hazō is exhausted after making seals for two days straight with only a few hours sleep. By the time you wake up you'll have something like twenty-four hours to find the next event.

Voting ends on Wednesday, February 28, 2018, at 12pm London time.

Author's Notes:

The Declaration to get paper and ink from Jiraiya was smart, and a good use of FP. I like having this mechanic because it means that Hazō can act on the player's direction based on information that he would plausibly have had but which simply didn't appear onscreen for whatever reason.

Regarding practicing the Sleight of Hand moves...having actually practiced multiple sleights in real life, I can say that this should really be a separate skill. That said, what you're trying to do is relatively simple and I don't like the whole 'you cannot even attempt something unless you have a specific skill' idea. After some discussion with the other QMs, we're going to say that you can do this with 0.75 * Deception vs Awareness. We've created the following Stunt which you're welcome to buy:

​

Stunt: Sleight of Hand​

XP Cost: 10​

Prereqs: None​

Description:​

​

Allows for all sort of sleight of hand -- palming objects, manipulating cards, switching objects without being seen, how and when to apply misdirection, etc. Mechanically, allows the user to roll their full Deception in order to get away with the moves. (Those attempting Sleight of Hand without the stunt roll 0.75 * Deception.) Circumstance bonuses will often apply, positively or negatively.​

​

I obviously didn't get through the part about Panashe following proctors, or the discussion re:Haru, or the yakuza segment. This saddens me, as I was really looking forward to writing the yakuza segment. We'll assume that you sent Panashe off to tail proctors, but @Velorien will have to answer as to how that went, as well as providing details on how the other teams did at acquiring words.

 

[Velorien]

Chapter 166.1: Civil Unrest​

It was finally night-time, and there could be no greater bliss than sleep in a comparatively safe environment where the rules prohibited their assassination (at least as far as Hazō could tell). However, before he could allow himself to collapse into oblivion, there was something Hazō needed to take care of.

"Why has thou summoned us here, O foolish Hazō?" Noburi intoned, sticking out his chin dramatically like the Demon Lord of Indolence in the old morality plays. The message was clear: this had better be important, or I'm going to go to back to bed and take your soul with me to use as a pillow.

Keiko snerked.

"I have summoned you here, O lowly Noburi, that we may discuss a matter of deep concern to me," Hazō responded.

Noburi nodded sagely. "You've run out of paper for making lists, and you want us to tie you down until the shops open in the morning and you can sate your addiction without breaking any laws."

"The last event revealed Nara Shikamaru to you in a new light, and now you seek permission to take my place as his potential bride," Keiko suggested.

"You've only now realised that you're surrounded by hot girls who don't run screaming when they see your face, and you want me to be your wingman while you build yourself a harem."

"You seek aid in plotting the assassination of Rock Lee, and know that none but I could exceed your passion for the cause."

"You've decided that you've had enough playing human politics and would rather become Panzō of the Pangolin Clan, but you need Keiko's help trading seals for citizenship and my help turning one of my old barrels into a convincing pangolin suit."

"Uh," Hazō said. "No, those are not things that I had in mind, although I may have to get back to you on the assassination thing once the exams are over. Actually, I was thinking about Yamamoto."

"So you picked up on it too," Noburi said.

Hazō nodded. "He's got a chip on his shoulder the size of a Multiple Earth Wall, and I'm worried that sooner or later all that anger bubbling beneath the surface is going to spill out on us."

"Given that all but the aptly-nicknamed Team Clanless consist of the clan members he appears to despise, you anticipate some form of treachery that will advantage his team at the price of harming the rest of us," Keiko concluded.

"Could be even worse," Noburi said. "I've seen guys like him before. Not saying I know where Yamamoto draws his lines, but he could well decide to take us down a peg just because. Show up the arrogant nobles looking down on him, that sort of thing. And given the way the exam works, anything bad happening to us is good for everyone else.

"So what're you thinking, Hazō? You want us to spend tonight laying down plans and contingencies?"

"Or are you advocating a pre-emptive strike?" Keiko asked. "It is a dangerous strategy, given that it risks alienation from the rest of the Leaf contingent, but in another way also the safest. If we contrive to remove Yamamoto from the exam, we will no longer need to expend mental resources on watching for intra-team betrayal. Team Clanless will be reduced to Haruno and Akane, a combination much more amenable to our influence, and establishing dominance over Yamamoto will prevent him from attempting to sabotage us on other occasions in the future. Or so I assume—I am more than happy to leave manipulating the interpersonal dynamics to more suitable minds."

"No," Hazō said. "That is not what I am advocating at all. I want us to reach out to him."

"You want us to poke the wasp nest, Hazō?"

"Listen," Hazō said firmly. "I don't know what it's like to be a commoner like him. For as long as I had the Kurosawa name, I couldn't be nobody to the people around me. But I do know what it's like not to be a clan kid. I remember going to the Academy and seeing the Kurosawa with their custom-made uniforms and brand new combat gear and off-the-shelf training scrolls."

"Hazō…"

Keiko motioned for Noburi to be quiet.

"I wasn't different from them. I wasn't some inferior species. I even had the same blood. I learned as fast as they did. I trained as hard as they did. I matched their marks in the exams, and sometimes I even beat them. But none of it mattered. Somebody, somewhere back in the millennia of ninja tradition, had decreed that people like me weren't allowed to have nice things. And that was that.

"You can't argue with tradition. It's not physical, like a statue you can topple, and it's not intellectual, like an argument you can disprove. Even when you can almost feel it, like a weight pressing down on you or a wall cutting you off from where you want to go, it's still not something you can touch. Challenging tradition was another thing people like me weren't allowed to do.

"I had to live with that invisible, intangible wall every day. I had to see my future laid out in front of me like a branching path, and make myself pretend away all the branches marked 'not for people like you'.

"Now, by what I can only call a series of miracles, I'm on the other side of the wall with the two of you. I have all the paths, all the branches. I get bowed to by people old enough to be my grandfather. I'm expected to have nice things, and if at any point I don't, the people around me get confused.

"But the wall hasn't gone anywhere. It's just harder to see from this side unless you remember exactly where it is, which I do. I can see Yamamoto, and everybody like Yamamoto, looking at me the way I once looked at the Kurosawa kids: 'I am just like you, so why am I not allowed to be where you are?'"

"Wow," Noburi said heavily after a second. "Wasn't expecting that."

Keiko didn't say anything. She just sat, very still and very quiet.

"Sorry," Hazō said awkwardly. "You weren't asking for a speech. And honestly, it's not like I spent nights lying awake wishing I was a clan kid. After a while you… resign yourself, I guess. You give up on fighting fate and you focus your energies elsewhere. Mari-sensei's common-born, and she became an elite jōnin by pouring everything into her work instead of spending her time pining after things she couldn't have. I guess… I want something like that for Yamamoto. I want him to spit in tradition's face by being better than the clan ninja, by becoming chūnin alongside us while countless clan teams are left in the dust. If we have to fight him, if we have to throw out the commoner for daring to bare his fangs at us, then we become the hand of tradition, keeping down the weak using the very resources they beg us to share.

"How can we hope to reach out to the civilian world if we can't even reach out to common-born ninja?"

For a while, the room was silent.

"Did you hate us?" It was almost a whisper.

"What?"

"Did you hate us?" Keiko repeated hesitantly. "Did you hate the clan ninja for having what you couldn't?"

"Not the way you think. We weren't different—that was more or less the point. We all studied together. We all played together. For every boy who gave himself airs because some random ancestor of his happened to luck into a Bloodline Limit ten thousand years ago, there'd be a boy who picked you for his team just because he saw that you were good at running, and didn't even bother to ask your name. If I had to hate anyone, it would be the ancient ninja who came up with the rules, the ones who built the wall in the first place. The same ones who decided to treat civilians like cattle and make ninjutsu a weapon of war. The ones whose work I will see undone even if it kills me."

"Hazō gives a big speech, pledges to turn the world upside down, morality play at eleven," Noburi said. "Seriously, though, are we adding this to the list? Dismantling the freaking clan system? Is that before or after we create a civilian paradise?"

"The clan system is an essential, perhaps the sole guarantor of stability in shinobi relations," Keiko said. "It structures both individual and group relationships, allows individuals to locate themselves in social space, and maintains hierarchies that variously shackle and direct destructive power in a controlled fashion. While it is not without its flaws, notably the poor integration of meritocratic and seniority-based mechanisms of role assignment, its removal would plunge the shinobi world into instant and fatal anarchy. I cannot accept this course of action."

"What she said. I mean, maybe you're right and there's a big gap between clan and non-clan ninja where there shouldn't be. No, sorry, that's dumb. I believe you when you say there's a big gap. Just like there's a big gap between ninja and civilians. And we're going to reduce that gap as best we can. But nothing we do can make ninja and civilians the same. If we try to erase the difference, we'll only fail, and probably end up doing huge damage to both in the process."

"But there is no difference!" Hazō exclaimed. "Weren't you listening? This isn't about having chakra or not. This is about people who are completely identical getting treated differently because of who their ancestors are!"

Noburi and Keiko exchanged glances.

"But we're not, are we? Completely identical, I mean. You have the Iron Nerve. I have the Vampiric Dew. Keiko has the Frozen Skein. No common-born ninja will ever be able to do the things we do, not if they live to be a thousand."

"Even in the case of clans such as the Nara, whose superiority stems from lore rather than something as unique as a Bloodline Limit, the centuries of accumulated and refined knowledge bestow upon them a set of abilities and a perspective on the world that cannot be imitated by any outsider," Keiko said. "A common-born ninja could achieve the same results as them by immersing themselves in the same lore—but to the extent that they succeeded, they would be making themselves into a Nara, because mastery of that lore, a process begun at birth and never ceased, is what makes the Nara the way they are.

"Hazō, nobody here is asserting that clan and non-clan ninja should not be equal. But to claim that they are identical is to deny reality. In terms of knowledge and capabilities, both physical and metaphysical, clan ninja are superior by definition, or their clans would not have survived."

"And that's it?" Hazō demanded. "The privileged keep racking up more privilege while the rest of us stay in the dirt? How is this any different to what's happening with ninja and civilians?"

"Enough, Hazō," Noburi snapped. "Seriously, enough. How many times have you used the Gōketsu name, or Gōketsu resources, to get an advantage? How about the Iron Nerve? Have you ever once regretted it?"

"Well, no, that's not—"

"You're better. We're better. Don't pretend otherwise just so you can feel morally superior. You don't hesitate to use whatever resources you have to get what you want, and you shouldn't. Power exists to be used. It's practically the Wakahisa motto. You can use it well, you can use it badly, but the one thing you can't do is leave it in the barrel. That's not what it's for.

"I'm trying to be sympathetic here, Hazō, I really am, but you're not making it easy. You've exploited every possible advantage to claw your way into a position of power and safety. You've won the ability to reshape the world the way you want. Just like my ancestors did. Just like Keiko's ancestors did. But for some reason you expect our clans to give up power while you keep yours."

"Although my reasoning is different, I must concur with the main thrust of Noburi's argument. Some clan ninja should not rule but do. Some civilian-born ninja should rule but do not. As I have said before, the system is insufficiently meritocratic. Nevertheless, it is a fact that the clans represent the pinnacle of human achievement, combining countless generations of knowledge and insight with the raw power necessary to put it into practice. I do not claim that the clans use this power wisely, or well—indeed, insofar as they are responsible for the state of the world, they have crafted a living hell—but only that over millennia of human history, this is the best we have been able to achieve. Discard that limited success, and we will be left with nothing at all."

Hazō didn't know what to say. Didn't know where to begin.

"Look," Noburi said more kindly, "I'll try to sound out Yamamoto tomorrow. Maybe hit up Akane and see if she has any thoughts. For tonight, can we just put the social revolution talk aside? We can hash it all out on a day when we're not in the middle of an exam event with dozens of enemies waiting for us to slip up."

"All right," Hazō said reluctantly, mentally papering over the gulf he could feel spreading between him and his teammates. He wasn't going to get much sleep tonight. "All right. In that case, there's one other thing I wanted to run past the two of you…"

-o-
​

The rest of this plan is consigned to the merciless talons of @eaglejarl, who will also dispense XP and/or FP.​

 

[eaglejarl]

Chapter 166.2: Old 'Friends'​

"All right," Hazō said, crouching down and pulling out a pair of Air Dome seals. "In that case, there's one other thing I wanted to run past the two of you. Give me a second though, I want privacy for this." The room was too small to spread the seals very far so the space inside the Dome wouldn't be tall enough to stand up, but it would still be soundproof. Given his past issues with OPSEC, Hazō was taking no chances.

Noburi rolled his eyes and Keiko sighed, but they joined him on the floor, hunching down as the Dome formed above them; they straightened up cautiously once it was in place.

"I want to go find the Yakuza," Hazō said, covering his mouth to prevent any possibility of lipreaders. "They might have intel on the Exams."

His teammates digested that, their faces a clear mix of thoughtfulness and gratitude at the topic change from their prior conversation with the accompanying hints of a fundamental split within the team.

"I don't see any harm in it," Noburi said at last, also covering his mouth, "but are they likely to know anything? I mean, they're civilians operating in a city that the Mizukage has always had a tight grip on. I'm not even sure how they exist."

"They are useful," said Keiko, hand over her open lips. "They keep crime manageable and organized. The Mizukage would prefer that his—now her—society run smoothly without the disruptions caused by crime. She is capable of wiping the Yakuza out, but she would then need to assign more ninja to police the city. The Yakuza provide a central organization whose leaders can be held accountable and can prevent certain crimes that would be inconvenient for the Mizukage. She allows them to exist so long as they keep things quiet and have only a manageable level of corruption.

"In any case, the plan seems to have merit. How would you expect to find them, Hazō?"

"Remember how I told you that, back when I was in the Academy, I used to scam money at dice to help pay the bills?" Hazō asked. "Well, I didn't realize that some of those games were run by the yaks. There was one time where I got into a high-stakes game and I was cleaning up. This big guy with tats took me into a back room, put a hammer on the table, and explained how I should never come back to that particular bar and how I should stay away from yak games in the future. He didn't do anything, just gave me a warning. I'm thinking we should go back to that bar disguised as civilians and I win a lot at dice. When they pick me up we give the money back and explain that we just needed a way to get in touch."

"Seems like an offensive way to kick things off, but I don't have a better idea," Noburi said, failing to hide a jaw-cracking yawn. "Sorry, a little tired. What exactly are we hoping to get from the yaks?"

Hazō shrugged. "No idea. Anything about the Exams, I guess. Maybe information about future events, or briefings on some of the other teams."

Keiko was nodding. "Indeed. Many events will require significant preparation. For example, the Yakuza might well know that one of the local sealmasters was recently recruited to produce four thousand Night Light seals. Had we known that in advance it would not have told us where the event would be held, but we could have guessed that the seals would be something we were expected to collect."

Noburi frowned. "Wouldn't have to have been for the Exams, would it?" He thought a moment, then shook his head. "No, it probably would. Those things used to be uncommon, so if production suddenly ramps way up right now then it's for the Exams."

"Indeed."

"Okay, it's a plan. Not tonight though, I'm bushed. We go in the morning, after breakfast."

o-o-o-o​

"Winna winna, chicken dinna! Pay up, boys! Poppy needs him a new set of shoes!"

Half a dozen glares bored into the man with the shockingly loud purple-and-green shirt. The combination was utterly eye-searing, but no one had said anything about his crimes against fashion. They cared far more about his crimes against probability; he had hit on every single throw of the dice since he rolled up to the game twenty minutes ago, and he had been loud and obnoxious about it, mocking the other players for the low stakes and their lack of skill. The other players had insisted on switching dice three times but it hadn't even slowed the bastard down—he took a few practice rolls to make sure the new dice were fair, then he went straight back to winning. Everyone was thoroughly sick of him but no one was willing to actually start a fight; he wasn't tall but he was barrel-chested with massive arms and a scar across his face that left his mouth permanently twisted into a vicious expression.

"Man, you Mist boys are even worse at this than they told me back home," the gambler said with a braying laugh. "'Takeshi', they said, 'those pipsqueaks in Mist suck at dice. They can barely count to seven, so even if they win it takes 'em five minutes to figure it out. You go to Mist, play a few games with those slope-headed idjits and you come back a rich man!' Boy, they weren't kiddin' none. Hey! Hey, what's a'matter? You leaving? Too much a pussy to stay in the game just 'cause you lost a couple o' rolls? Man, they were right about your balls, too—Mist boys ain't got none!"

The gambler's mouth clopped shut as a massive hand landed on his shoulder. A hand with tattoos across the back and up the arm. A very large hand and a muscle-bulging arm.

"Come with me," the giant attached to the hand rumbled. "Someone would like to talk to you."

"Yeah, now!" the jackass crowed. "My skills are gettin' recognized!" He stood and followed the giant through a door at the back of the bar.

The moment the door closed behind them the prisoner turned to his captor. "I do apologize for my behavior," he said calmly. "I wasn't sure how else to get your attention. The money's in my pouch, along with some extra for your trouble. Also, would it help if I screamed? You know, so the people outside would think—"

The giant grunted and glared. "Shut up. The boss wants to talk to you."

"Okay," the obnoxious gambler said, his voice resigned. He looked around curiously; they were in the middle of a small supply cabinet where the bar kept jars of booze, mops, mugs, and other implements of the trade. There was no sign of a boss or anywhere for one to be hidden. "Lead the way."

Without taking his eyes off the gambler, the giant shifted a set of shelves to reveal a door. The gambler opened it and walked through without waiting to be told.

The other side of the door was a surprisingly spacious office with a door opposite the one the gambler had entered through. Spacious or not, it was rendered cramped by the five separate desks that had been jammed into it. Four of them were against the walls on the sides of the room and occupied by men in short-sleeved shirts with ink stains on their fingers. The fifth desk was directly in front of the gambler and the man who sat behind it was the furthest thing from a scribe.

He wasn't as massive as his enforcer, but he had the arms and chest of a man who had spent time working manual labor before killing his way to his current position. His hair was long, gathered into a ponytail and tied back with a red string. A tattoo of a dragon, done in red ink and with careful detail, wound its way around his neck and across his face. He sat back in his chair, hands folded across his stomach and face utterly expressionless.

"Sit down," grunted the enforcer, shoving his prisoner toward the chair in front of what was very clearly the Yakuza boss. The gambler dropped into the chair without objection and sat calmly.

"I apologize for my behavior," he said, bowing deeply. "I didn't know how else to get a meeting."

The boss said nothing.

"If you'll allow me," the gambler said, "I'd like to return the money that I won in your game, along with a generous amount of interest as an apology for my rudeness. I've got some business I'd like to discuss if you're willing. I'm looking for information about the Chūnin Exams and I'm willing to pay quite a lot."

The boss said nothing. The gambler waited patiently.

A full minute dragged by, the only sound the faint scritch, scritch of the scribes' pens.

Eventually the gambler spoke again. "We really should move this along," he said. "Things are going to get noisy in about sixty heartbeats. Like I said, I just want to do business."

"You got some serious balls on you," the boss grunted. "'Get noisy', huh? I've got a dozen guys around here, including a ninja."

"Yeah, well, I've got the Pangolin Summoner. If she hasn't gotten the first all-clear code in about forty heartbeats then she's going to come join the party. That wall behind me is going to get smashed into toothpicks by a giant spikey murderball and then it's going to be hard for us to have a quiet conversation." He paused. "Here, maybe this will help." There was a puff of smoke and the obnoxious, middle-aged gambler was replaced by a teenage boy in camoflage clothes with a veil wrapped around his face. He unwound the veil quickly and met the boss's gaze.

The boss's eyes went wide. "What's the code?" he demanded.

"'Games in the sand'," Hazō said. "She's the woman in the yellow hat at the end of the bar, reading an Icha Icha book. She came in about an hour before I did."

A nod from the boss sent the enforcer hurrying out the door. A snapped-out order sent the scribes scurrying out of the room through the door behind the boss's desk.

"My name is Saitō and I am second lieutenant of this territory. How may I help you, Mr. Gōketsu?" the Yakuza boss asked politely, sitting up straight for the first time since Hazō had walked in.

"Let me say again that I'm very sorry for my rude behavior outside, sir," Hazō said. "It was solely intended to attract your attention since I needed to obtain a meeting quickly and did not know how else to do so. I will of course return all the money along with a generous additional payment. Beyond that, I was hoping to acquire whatever information you have about the Exams. Starting with how you recognized me. I mean, I was hoping you would, that's why I took the veil off, but I wasn't really sure it would work."

The yakuza boss smiled grimly. "Mr. Gōketsu, the Chivalrous Organization is strongly motivated to know every ninja in the village by face and, ideally, by name and personality. Otherwise how could we show respect and provide appropriate discounts to our beloved protectors?"

Hazō considered that for a moment. "I see. Well, in that case, what payment would you like in exchange for information about the Exams? Specifically, we're interested in what odds are being offered for bets on the Chūnin Exams. Also, anything you can tell us about what the events are and where and when they start. Dossiers on the other contestants would also be appreciated."

"That would be extremely valuable information, sir," the boss said. "Very closely held by the Mizukage's people."

Hazō considered him for a moment. "Mr. Saitō, I am not the negotiator on my team. I do tactics and close-in violence. If you were dealing with Keiko then she'd dance with you like this, offer and counteroffer. You could pretend you didn't have the information in order to drive the price up and she could pretend to walk out the door to signal that she wouldn't put up with it, and then you could suggest that perhaps you could come by it and she would say something appropriate and so on and so on. That's not really my thing.

"My team came to Mist for a couple of reasons. First, we're here to show that despite being less than three years out of the Academy we can mop the floor with any genin squad in the Elemental Nations. That's not a brag, sir. That's a fact. Pangolin Summoner, sealmaster, some techniques I won't even go into...you obviously know who I am, which implies that you know I spent the last two years in the cold. My team has killed everything and everyone that has ever threatened us from the Swamp of Death to the shores of Noodle. We prefer to negotiate and find common ground, but we can back it up with a truly shattering amount of overkill if we're pressed.

"My contact with the Chivalrous Organization in the past has been negative—I was threatened at a young age and prevented from earning money that my family desperately needed. I would like to set all that aside and do business with a clean slate between us. What I do not want to do, however, is pussyfoot around. Tell me what you can provide and what you want for it. If it's remotely reasonable, I'll get it for you. I have access to a great deal of money, I can make seals for you, and this deal would be the first stone in a bridge between the Chivalrous Organization and the Gōketsu clan. Oh, and the Mizukage, since I'm her nephew.

"So. Let me ask again: what do you have and what do you want?"

Saitō considered that for a moment. "Very well. Let me preface this by saying that I am second lieutenant, not first lieutenant and certainly not Oyabun. I don't want to send you away empty-handed; you're right that the opportunity to open negotiations with the Gōketsu is the best thing that's happened to the Organization in a long time. I feel that my superiors will support me making one deal with you in order to start things off on the right foot, but after this you should really negotiate directly with our Oyabun. That negotiation would be in person or through an intermediary at his choice. Is that acceptable to you, sir?"

Hazō nodded, offering a shallow bow of gratitude. "Very much so. I thank you for your forthrightness, Mr. Saitō."

The older man smiled tightly. "Excellent. Going back to what you said you were interested in: I have dossiers on many of the Exam contestants. I will not share the dossiers on Mist genin at any price, and I very much doubt that my superiors will either. We need to stay on the good side of the Mizukage or she will end us. So. The foreign teams. My information on them is obviously limited but it's a start. More importantly, I know what the next event is, when, and where."

Hazō straightened in surprise. "That is excellent news. What would you like in exchange?"

"Tell me what you want."

Hazō frowned in confusion. "I told you. The dossiers, information on the events...."

"No. Not what you are looking for at this moment. Tell me what you want in life. What is most important to you, what drives you to be here, now, and what will drive you to be wherever it is you are a year from now. Who is Gōketsu Hazō, former outcast of the Kurosawa clan and missing-nin?"

Hazō went still. "That is a very personal question, sir. Some people might consider it dangerous to ask a ninja such a personal question."

Saitō kept eye contact, his face utterly still as he shrugged one shoulder. "We both know that you can kill me if you so desire. This is why I ask; your response, be it violence, truth, or lies, will tell the Organization everything they need to know about you for future dealings."

Hazō considered that carefully. "Very well. I want to make the world better. I want to uplift civilians, give them the same quality of life that ninja have. I want to do the same for the clanless ninja, make them the equal of the clans. I want to make it so that civilians don't need to live in fear of chakra beasts and ninja don't have to kill. I want everyone to be rich enough and strong enough that the members of the Chivalrous Organization neither need nor want to hurt people and rob them. I want to see everyone literate and healthy. I want to be with my family, together." His face worked slightly and he swallowed. "I want my father back, and I want no child to ever have to lose their father again."

Saitō's eyebrows went up. He stood, and offered the deepest bow Hazō had ever received. "Thank you, Mr. Gōketsu," he said. "You honor me with your openness." He held the bow for a moment, then sat down, opened a drawer in his desk, and shuffled some scrolls before bringing one out. "The details of the event are on this; the event begins in the mission office of Mizukage Tower. It has been a pleasure doing business with you. If and when you would like to meet with our Oyabun, please return to this establishment and use the codeword 'sea turtle soup'. The process of taking you to him will be a bit involved and not quick, but we will arrange it." He held out the scroll.

"Thank you, Mr. Saitō," Hazō said, taking the scroll and bowing. "I shall look forward to future bargains with the Chivalrous Organization." With a polite nod he turned and left.

---

XP AWARD: 5

FP AWARD: 2

Vote time! What to do now? Options include:

• Review the scroll with Noburi and Keiko, then back to hunting word-halves.
• Get with the other Leaf teams to review the scroll.
• Try to see Jiraiya if he's available.
• Something else?

Voting ends on Wednesday, March 7, 2018, at 12pm London time.

---

Author's Notes:

The plan was easy to follow and gave me a lot to work with, without overloading me. Speaking of which:

The plan called for all three members to go in and talk with the Yakuza. Keiko felt it would be better if it was only Hazō, since he had had at least some prior contact with the Yakuza and was the tactician of the team. It was unlikely that any civilian Yakuza thug could threaten Hazō but it was possible that they had ninja of some quality on retainer, so having only one person in the trap and the other two on call seemed safer. Besides, she didn't want to risk Uncle Kagome hearing that you walked into the lion's den without treating it as a serious situation. Both Noburi and Keiko were in the bar, having come in under henge well before Hazō did. Hazō mentioned Keiko was there but never said anything about Noburi because it's always good to have an ace in the hole. (Hazō is pretty confident that Saitō figured out the third member of their team would be there as well, but neither of them felt the need to say it.)

The plan said that you also wanted to get some poisons. Hazō let that go since Saitō had been very clear about doing only one deal himself before passing you along to his superiors. Your plan called for Presence and Deceit as your negotiating strategy; Hazō went with Presence (and a little Intimidation) for the opening but felt it better to actually be open and honest when Saitō asked his price.

The contents of the scroll are as follows:

​

EVENT #3​

Directions for senior proctor:​

1. Greet the contestants politely
2. Lay the bandanas on the desk
3. Inform the contestants that they will hear the instructions only once. Ensure that the environment is quiet and otherwise suitable for spoken communication.
4. Obtain verbal acknowledgement that the contestants understand they will hear the instructions only once.
5. Recite the following clearly, filling in [square bracketed] text as appropriate.

Directions for the contestants:​

​

The third event [begins / began] at dawn on November 2. It ends at dawn on November 7.​

​

The event simulates a bodyguard / escort mission for a civilian merchant who is in Mist to conduct business. You will be assigned a proctor who will play the part of your client. The 'client' will have a persona indicating what sort of merchant they are, what contacts they have, etc. The client will be making all decisions concerning the business and dictating their own travel schedule around town. It is your job to support these decisions.​

​

As with any escort mission, it is important to make a positive impression so that the merchant is inclined to hire you in the future. At the end of the event you will receive between -20 and +20 points depending on your client's review of your helpfulness, courtesy, and professionalism.​

​

You and your client are playing the part of foreigners. For the duration of the event, teams may not make contact with any of their clan members, personally or through intermediaries. Attempts to do so will result in penalties or disqualification depending on the nature of the violation.​

​

Both you and your client must be visibly wearing these bandanas [indicate the bandanas] around your neck at all times in order to make it clear that you are part of the event. If you remove your bandana, you are disqualified from the event. If you remove another contestant's bandana, or cause it to be removed, you are disqualified from the event.​

​

If you are disqualified then your team will be taken directly to the barracks and confined there for the duration of the event. Your score for the event will be a flat -50 points or whatever score you have earned if it is below -50.​

​

Scoring is as follows:​

1. Teams are scored as a whole. Whatever score your team earns is added to each individual's total.
2. At the end of the event you will receive 1 point for every 1,000 Mist ryō your client has amassed. You are not permitted to give the client money or its equivalents.
3. You will be assessed the aforementioned -20 to +20 points based on the client's review.
4. If your client is 'killed' then you are disqualified from the event and your score for the event is a flat -200 points or whatever score you have earned if it is below -200.
5. A client is considered killed if a hostile contestant touches them, strikes them with a training or simulated weapon, uses a damaging jutsu on them, catches them in the radius of a training explosive tag, or does anything else that would reasonably kill or injure a civilian.
6. You will be moving around the village during this event. Collateral damage is not acceptable and must be stringently avoided. In the event of injury or property damage, the consequences will apply to anyone the proctors think may have been directly or indirectly involved, regardless of whether they personally caused the damage or were definitively known to be present.
   1. The penalty for a death is disqualification from the Exams, forfeiture of your village's bond, and all of your village's contestants being sent home immediately. If a Mist contestant is involved in a death then all Mist contestants will be sent to an outpost on the edge of the Land of Water for the duration of the Exams and the Mist bond will be forfeit as per normal Chūnin Exam rules.
   2. The penalty for injuring a proctor or anyone who is not part of the event, even so much as a bruise, is -50 to -1,000 points depending on the severity of the injury. You will also be responsible for the victim's medical fees plus 10,000 ryō; those monies will be paid twice: once from your client's supply and once from your village's bond.
   3. Property damage will be scored as injury to a person—a scorch mark or broken table will cost -50 points and the price of replacement plus 10,000 ryō, paid twice. The costs go up from there depending on the severity of the damage.
   4. Any action intended to cause another team to inflict collateral damage will be treated as your team causing a fatality: disqualification for all teams from your village, forfeiture of your village's bond, and ejection from the Land of Water.

Directions for senior proctor:​

1. Obtain verbal acknowledgement that all contestants heard and understood the part of the rules related to collateral damage. If there are reasonable questions on that section, answer them. Do not answer questions on anything else.
2. Instruct the contestants to put their bandanas around their necks. Verify that they are secure and visible. Remind them again that the bandanas must be visible at all times and that removal of their own or anyone else's bandana means disqualification.
3. Have the contestants escorted to the holding area until their proctor is ready.
4. Proctors shall be ready at the earliest possible time after the event begins and their assigned escorts have arrived.