Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

[Paperclipped]

Chapter 649: The Message​

"Ready for infusion?" Hazō asked.

Kagome-sensei nodded grumpily. The man was incredibly unhappy with Hazō's latest idea and it was getting to him in a big way. There had been at least four separate occasions where he had opened his mouth to say something, presumably a rant about safety and lack thereof, but then shaken it off without a word. It was disturbing. Still, he was going along.

Hazō nodded and turned his attention back to the simple slip of paper in his lap. It was a simple idea: a variation of another one of his original seals, the Light Relay, that would instead slightly change the color of the light going in and out. It was a trivial seal for a sealmaster as skilled as he was. It was also one more thing:

A marker for himself. For his future self.

The challenges they faced were too large. Resurrection? The degradation of the Great Seal? Akatsuki, with their desire to resurrect Pain and somehow rule or transform the world in likely unwanted ways?

He needed help, and his dream last night had given him the answer. In it he had stood in fog, the center of a line of Hazōs that stretched out of sight in both directions. Looking over his shoulder, he recognized the clothes of the ones behind him; they were the clothes he had worn yesterday, the day before, the day before that, in a steady line back as far as he could remember his sartorial choices. So, about a week.

If the ones behind him were his past selves, what about the ones in front? The fog grew thicker faster, his other selves becoming blurry, their exact positions indistinct. Still, they were there. They were there, and when he called out to them their heads turned in surprise, looking back to him.

He had jerked awake, the dream shattering before it could progress to anything useful. Still, the basic idea was there: what if he could leave a message for a future self, and a future self could call an answer back?

This seal was his attempt at that. It wasn't a challenging thing to make – and for that, all the better. Given the stakes he was playing with, he didn't need any extra complications. The first infusion of a new seal was a memorable one, so this infusion would serve as a marker in time, a signpost for his future self to send a message. A message that he promised himself to send to himself once he had the ability, which he promised himself he would develop.

Of course, he'd wanted to do this ritual with a rune instead, but if it didn't work and immediately give him unending, godlike power, he didn't want to be on the receiving end of whatever punishment Orochimaru meted out for breaking the rule on runic research outside the basement.

He pushed the thoughts away and focused on the infusion. He needed to remember every detail.

He took it slow, sweating every tiniest detail even more than he normally did. Finally, the final moment came; he poured in the last drop, twisted his chakra into the final loop, and tied it off. Many things happened at once.

Futures crashed against one another, million or billions of them vaporizing in an instant.

Wars raged through Potentialities, possibilities blowing to and fro on the winds of fate and chance as 'perhaps' strove to become 'is'.

And, least impressively but perhaps most importantly, a packet of unassuming off-white paper appeared in midair and fell atop his lap desk with a faint 'plop'. It landed on the smooth surface and slid until it slipped from there to the ground.

Hazō blinked. His trained mind flickered across lists and tripped along flowcharts, checking to see whether this should be considered a seal failure. Tentatively, he decided it did not so he bent down and lifted the papers.

He turned the packet this way and that in his hands, considering. It was good paper, heavy and rich, with even color and thickness. Paper suitable for a sealmaster. It had been tri-folded, the edges sealed with wax to form an envelope. An envelope that bulged and was heavy enough to contain a large number of pages.

He turned it over and the blood drained from his face at the words written on the front. Written in his own hand, above a wax seal with the Gōketsu family crest pressed into it.

Bonfire! 50 miles, any direction! Go go go!​

"Bonfire!" he shouted, shoving the packet into his shirt and Substituting away to where Kagome-sensei waited behind the first barrier. He grabbed the older man, repeated the Gōketsu family escape code, and dragged him away.

They ran. Two, perhaps three hours of pounding feet that required all his training to lock away the screaming pain from exercising his still-burned back. There was insufficient breath to spare for sharing the details with a steadily more nervous teacher who knew better than to demand answers.

Finally, Hazō came to a halt. Kagome-sensei slowed beside him, still not speaking. They were no longer at the research facility but Hazō was still the SSO and did not need distraction.

Hazō produced the packet, broke the wax that sealed it shut, and tipped the contents out into his hand. It was not, as he had expected, loose sheets of the same heavy paper. It was one page that was thin, painfully thin, so thin he needed to handle it with care, and then another packet made from moderately heavy paper with the edges sealed shut and the words READ THE LETTER BEFORE OPENING THIS on the outside. He slid the packet back inside the outer packet for safekeeping and read the loose sheet.

Dear past self,

I think Kagome-sensei was with you when you did this, right? Sage, I miss him so much. You lucky asshole, getting to stand there with him and listen as he calls you a stinker and talks about your face-on-fire stupid ideas. Were the others there too? I don't remember, which is an extremely bad sign. Was Kei there or had she already...never mind. No, wait, I talked to her yesterday. I think? Yes, she was in on the planning for this. Wasn't she? Gah, stupid Twinings. Maybe a full Redaction, or Counterredaction? Whatever, not now.

Finish reading this letter before you show it to anyone else. I honestly have no idea if sharing it is stupid or essential, but make sure you have all the information before you decide.

Oh, be careful about going back to wherever it was that we infused that seal. It might be sitting there humming to itself perfectly happily or it may have gone critical. Depends on whether the shrillings found this Counterredaction point.

We did it this time. Cracked time like an egg with our clever little stunt. Kagome-sensei was so pissed. (He was there! Hah! Did I remember that before a moment ago or was that a Counterredaction? I don't know. He's such a kidder.) That said, cracking time like an egg might not be all that much of a good thing. You can't put an egg back together.

If this works at all then I'm going to be very limited in how much mass I can send. I'm also going to be limited in the number of times I can do this: once. Why only once? Because either sending this message wipes me and my reality from existence (please let it be so!) or it doesn't work at all. Or, worst of all, it works but I—you—am too stupid or too slow to fix everything. Well, and because I'm blowing a hole through the gestalt field and consuming a massive amount of chakronic potential. That probably doesn't mean anything to you. Put it this way: sending this message required literally uncountable versions of us to die, along with everyone in their universe, so that we could concentrate all the chakra in those universes in order to punch a hole through time. And when I say 'punch a hole', I mean that literally. Not just time, either. I had to

Never mind, that's a tangent. The key point is Don't do this again. Doing it once is going to cause major problems for every Potentiality in the cosmos. Doing it twice would almost certainly cause a… let's just call it a 'highly energetic event'. And I've seen a couple of runic failures now, so now-me's scale for highly energetic is a lot better than then-me's.

Sage, I wish I could have done this with a rune, and sent you a whole doom fortress. I'm still better with paper seals though, and that means that this is all you're going to get. The Paths weren't built for nonlinear time, and by doing this, I've permanently altered the structure of the Paths. Want the Paths to keep existing? No more time travel. Ideally, never fail a dimensionalism seal or rune ever again but hey, I know me. You. Whatever.

Huh...I wonder...I can't be the only Potentiality that thought to do this. Maybe one or more of the others are doing it and that's why the

Wait, should I say that? What if knowing that is the thing that...no, fuck it. I'm not second guessing myself. We talked about it and agreed that this much should be acceptable. There are limits, and this should be within them.

It's important that I not shape your actions too much. Why? You'll figure it out. Or maybe you won't and I'm about to spend ten minutes failing to infuse this damn thing. Or maybe they'll finally get through the doors, or I'll lose focus and the scraping will— No, focus. Focus, Hazō! I am myself! I am not you, so shut up! No, I won't write that, shut up shut up shut up!!!

Shit, I'm wasting so much paper and there isn't much. Okay, focusing.

I/you decided that I/me would use that seal as a marker to send a message back. Congratufuckinglations, it worked. Don't do it again you shithead. But thank you for doing it once.

This message includes six sealed packets, nested one inside the next like the disasters that you set in motion you absolute fucking moron. So arrogant, thinking that you could run a mission to a resort without murdering millions, or break pieces off a guardian in a cavern without destroying most of a continent. Hah! Fuck that, it was small potatoes in the end. Killing the bigger guardians, that was the problem. Millions of dead and they're on you, Hazō. You, you absolute fucking shit-for-brains careless asshole, skipping gaily through life without thinking about anyone else or the consequences of anything, of how your stupid clumsy feet—

Sorry, the scraping is getting loud. It wants me to die, thinks that will throw us into disarray. They (it? we aren't sure) aren't that bright. It's mostly Kei who runs things, when she exists. Anyway, the disasters aren't your fault. Our fault. Well, a little. I contributed, I guess. It's really me more than you, except you are me and your choices made me so it's your fault too! Hah! I'm not alone! I don't carry all of it!

Sorry.

There are problems coming. You—I—have done things that caused them, or at least contributed. Skywalkers killed the Third and set off WWIV. And maybe V and VI, depending on how you count and whether you're in a Potentiality where AMITY came into existence/survived the Crush. Killing the Dragons unwove the protections and allowed the Great Escape. Killing the Horned One united the warring factions. Ousting Cannai— Stop. Don't let it get to you, Hazō. Ignore it. Breathe, focus. It can't reach you unless you let it. Focus on the page.

Wait, I actually wrote that? Damn, hands are writing by themselves again. That can't be good.

Okay, I'm burning paper. Past-Hazō, there are things you need to know and things you need to do to ensure that me and my family and my friends never existed. Do NOT FAIL ME! Please, make it never have been.

At the same time, I can't tell you too much. Not all at once. I know, I know, now I'm becoming one of the lore forbidders. Sorry. There are reasons.

Like I said, there are six envelopes inside this one. Each contains a letter with information / instructions, an event description, and the next envelope in the nesting. DO NOT OPEN THE INNER PACKETS UNTIL THE TRIGGER EVENT HAPPENS. I know it will be tempting, but don't do it. Consider this to operate on seal-research protocols and I'm the SSO. Seriously, DO NOT FUCK ME ON THIS YOU LITTLE... Sorry, my head is getting loud again.

Instructions: Keep the family with you. Mari, Akane, Noburi, Kei, and Jiraiya. Wait, no. Jiraiya and Akane are dead now for you. Or maybe it was only one of them? One of them got captured, I think. Or maybe that got Redacted so that they died? Or Counterredacted? No, that's stupid, why would we have Counterredacted them dead? Fuck. Never mind. If either or both of them are dead then you'll have to rescue them, and the other four. You must.

We were thinking about going missing back now for you. Analysis suggests that either path might work and we aren't sure which would be better. Whatever, just ensure the family stays together.

Thing you need to know: The Dragons weren't trying to destroy the Runic Mount—wait, I still called it the Great Seal back you-now. Whatever. They weren't trying to destroy it, they were trying to keep it from breaking down and releasing all the other Dragons. That's why they rarely left the butte. Don't worry, they still needed to die, it just means the timetable accelerates. If I remember right then it was twelve years from when I originally did this little time-traipsing stunt to when the Mount shattered. You might have ten years, or five, or two. Or six hours, who the fuck knows? The Paths are different now. You-now. The whole point of this is to change things.

You don't have enough for what's coming, so I've included something to help. I've included rift seals, rift runes, and special stuff I made for containing the Dragons better. I never did finish researching the Runic Mount before it exploded. I think I could probably manage it now, but I don't think you have a chance of pulling it off before it goes critical. Can't give you any more runes though. They're half the reason why this timeline's so fucked I'm willing to kill us all off and try again. Of course, maybe you aren't reading this because the whole enterprise failed. Kagome-sensei would have scolded me so hard and told me what a face-on-fire stupid idea this was.

No, wait. Not 'would'. Did. Twenty minutes ago, right? He Counterredacted himself after the... Shut up, Hazō! Shut up, shut up, shut up!

Ugh, my hands are writing by themselves again. There's no time to recopy it.

Trigger event for next envelope: Completion of reading this letter.

Hazō swallowed nervously and opened the next packet. Sure enough, there were more sheets of the incredibly thin paper and another envelope.

He gave the first few sheets a quick glance, just enough to verify that yes, they were seal design notes, before going on to the final page. It was short.

Trigger event for next envelope:

1. The date is no earlier (earlier! not later, earlier!) than August 7, 1071 AS (you're still using AS, right? Whatever. The 71st year after Leaf was supposedly founded.) AND
2. The entire family is standing in the cave with the chakra water that Orochimaru told us about.

---

All thanks to @eaglejarl for basically writing this chapter.

The Gifts of Future Hazō​

FutureHazō wrote in his crosstime missive that he was mass-limited. He also rambled wildly and included a lot of unnecessary junk, some of which I [NB: @eaglejarl wrote this bit] did not bother to mention in the text. A partial list:

• A selection of recipes from the Seventh Path, most of which can't be made on the Human Path due to key ingredients not being available
• (Probably as a gift for Kagome), nine packets of insanely hot ground pepper
• Rambling diary entries regarding days during which nothing interesting happened
• Into the Fire, Senju Hashirama's lost book. Only the first two pages, unfortunately
• Literal laundry lists. Not "wash the laundry" but "wash the green shirt, and the two blue socks, and the red pants"
• Five stanzas of an attempt at creating a national anthem for the Land of Fire
• Opining on the Political: One Man's Journey Through Government. It's a title page to a book that maybe could have been fascinating if it had an author's name or, you know, a book
• Orange pulp in a small paper sachet with a note saying "some of the rune stuff gets stinky"
• Lunar azimuth tables for different locations throughout the EN on 1073-04-03, 1074-04-02, and 1079-04-01
• Various seal and rune design notes:
  • Rift Seal 0: makes a chakra construct that attaches to a rift.
    • Difficulty: Jōnin.
  • Rift Seal 1: makes a chakra construct that opens the rift when attached to a rift from both sides.
    • Difficulty: Jōnin.
  • Rift Seal 2: sends a sensor through the rift to collect calibration data for further chain seals.
    • Difficulty: Jōnin.
  • Rift Bioseal 0: connects a human's chakra system to a rift.
    • Difficulty: [Hazō does not know biosealing and therefore cannot judge difficulty]
  • Rift Bioseal 1: rapidly empties a human's chakra system into a rift, hopefully inflating it from only one side.
    • Difficulty: [Hazō does not know biosealing and therefore cannot judge difficulty]
  • Rift Rune 0: stabilizes a rift in the center of the rune. Prevents time-related degradation of the rune.
    • Difficulty: Hazō thinks he could maybe do this rune.
  • Rift Rune 1: stabilizes and inflates a rift in the center of the rune. Keeps the rift open for the rune's duration, approximately 2 years, unless prematurely shut down.
    • Difficulty: Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities.
  • Rift Seal 3: attaches to an opened rift and anchors it to the seal. If the rift is then closed, moving Rift Seal 3 around moves the anchored rift as well. The notes indicate that the movement should be slow, less than 1 mile/hour, to minimize degradation of the rift.
    • Difficulty: Jiraiya
  • Rift Rune 2: creates a "dimensional anchor".
    • Difficulty: Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities.
  • Rift Seal 4: permanently closes a rift.
    • Difficulty: Jōnin
  • Rift Rune 3: creates a rift between Rift Rune 3 and a Rift Rune 2 at the approximate corresponding location on Naraka. In theory, it should work in reverse.
    • Difficulty: Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities.
  • Harumitsu's Outstanding World-Saving Rune: HOWS, but runic scale, requiring far less upkeep.
    • Difficulty: Hazō thinks this rune is well within his capabilities.
  • Dragon Part Containment Rune: minimizes the 'Path-aberration' caused by dead Dragon parts.
    • Difficulty: Hazō thinks he could maybe do this rune.
  • Dragon Containment Rune: creates a physical barrier that Dragons cannot cross (humans, summons, and ninjutsu can cross the barrier like normal; seals and runes cannot).
    • Difficulty: Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities.

We will provide information on how much substrate/chakra is required for each rune once we've finished sorting out all the exact TNs. Future!Hazō's notes say that the seal's difficulties or effects will change as a result of the actions he took to send a message back in time – at the very least, the astrological differences will be massive and force Hazō to actually re-research the seal, rather than simply follow the instructions from his future self.

Spoiler: Sealing research

Hazō is champing at the bit to get back to challenging sealing research – among other reasons for this, because he's now stagnant in sealing. Thankfully, his consequence has cleared as of the end of this update, so this won't hurt his XP total too much.

Difficulty checks:

• Light Shift
  • Trivial
• Reality Eater
  • Hazō formulates this as a storage effect that grabs everything in a radius. This is very likely to fail against living opponents, but could be good (e.g.) for tunneling through solid material.
  • Difficulty: Jōnin
  • (Kagome would be beyond disappointed in Hazō for attempting to replicate a sealing failure)
• Explosive 2.0:
  • Hazō goes for a minimal improvement on explosives to test the waters.
  • Difficulty: Genin
• Severing Field
  • Difficulty: Jōnin
• Crystal Transformation
  • Difficulty: Jiraiya
• Colored Strobe
  • Difficulty: Chuunin
• Powered Strobe
  • Difficulty: Jiraiya
  • It seems like pumping up the power input is the main limitation. Unfortunate that these are meant to be combat seals, because Hazō's shiny PS stat gives him a nice answer to power-limited seals.
• Reverse Dampeners
  • Difficulty: Jiraiya
  • Hazō isn't sure, but suspects that however hard these were going to be, having them affect living things definitely pushed them over the top.
• Mirror Dragon Seals
  • Difficulty: Jiraiya
  • What did you expect?
• Chakra Potential Raising Rune
  • Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities.
• Chakra Potential Lowering Rune
  • Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities.

After completing the series of difficulty checks, Hazō spends a couple days working on the trivial Light Relay. Why? Partly, Hazōpilot would really like to do any sort of sealing research. Partly, to provide an infusion to anchor @eaglejarl's lovely scene above. Unfortunately, the plan carefully avoids doing any real infusion, and rune research is forbidden outside Orochimaru's basement besides (and while it would be fun to write Orochimaru pissed at Hazō, it would only be sweet if it were due to player error), so I decided to have Hazō do the Light Shifter.

Hazō (Sealing): 51 - 12 (Severe) + ? (help from Kazushi) + 9 = 48
Hazō (Calligraphy): 50 - 12 (Severe) - 6 = 32

Hazō (Sealing): 51 - 12 (Severe) + ? (help from Kazushi) - 3 = 36
Hazō (Calligraphy): 50 - 12 (Severe) - 3 = 35

Hazō finishes the Light Shift seal in two days, and the final infusion prompts the scene above. Normally, he wouldn't have Kagome hanging out for a research infusion, but the seal is trivial and this is Gōketsu-fucking-Hazō we're talking about.

In the process of preparing for the "Mirror Dragon" seal, Hazō ventured out to the site of the battle against the Dragons (inasmuch as it can be called a site, rather than a stretch of countryside larger than some daimyos' demesnes) on skywalkers and gathered a scale the size of his forearm with a pair of heavy iron tongs. Those tongs have now joined with the Will of Fire, but the scale rests in an Earthshaped stone vault deep underneath Hazō's office.

Kei downchecks asking Yuno about becoming the Hyena summoner. As the plan for the conversation with Cannai doesn't specify what to do if Yuno doesn't refuse but is prevented by a sanity checker, I'll skip the Cannai conversation (also I'm very busy this week, and this probably puts the Cannai conversation back in @eaglejarl's hands so that he can enjoy it (if he's not immediately swamped by the magnitude of the plotline he's just created)).

After extensive debriefing, travel, negotiating, and more, Cannai and the other bosses are back in their home territories. Canabisu and the squad of dogs formerly stuck in Arachnid have returned home, and a new squad of dogs have been left in Arachnid for diplomatic relations and Hazō's reverse-summoning needs. We'll flesh them out when we need to.

Hazō has transcribed your conversation with Kamehameha and stored it in the Gōketsu Dark Vault (Kagome's room).

Hazō does not currently have access to infused Instant Darkness Dome seals, and so cannot test their interaction with Nara ninjutsu.

Hazō and Kei perform the test with Geode Coffin. It appears that Shadow Possession can in fact connect with the shadow of someone inside a Geode Coffin if their shadow falls outside the coffin.

Reo has been instructed to stop shadowing Gaku around and return to Orochimaru's notes. He clearly feels a little whiplashed, but agrees. Atomu has begun shadowing Gaku around. Gaku comments that Atomu's good at handling people, but he's not very sharp with numbers.

The Tower provides notes for an as-yet-unspecified amount of OPSEC and static defense seals to Hazō, under the usual condition that if he researches the seals, he must provide a small tithe of said seals back to the Tower. Suggestions regarding said seals are welcome.

Hazō's Severe Consequence has cleared as of the end of this update.

XP AWARD: 39 This update covered 13 days.

Brevity XP: 10 (Brevity XP caps at 10.)

"GM had fun" XP: 10 I would award more but we're trying to avoid XP inflation and the others will likely be grumpy with me for awarding this much. Still, the time manipulation thing was super fun. I just wish I'd had the juice to get to the rest of it, but nope. As a matter of fact, I am slightly grumpy with @eaglejarl for awarding this much GM-fun XP on the chapter, but I'm not going to take away the XP (no more than I could take away the fun he had writing it).

Voting is closed, as @Velorien would very much like to have Kei tell Hazō exactly what she thinks about the idea of giving Yuno a summoning scroll solely to slaughter Pangolins.

 

[Velorien]

Future Interlude (AU?): Instances of Three Individuals, Part 1​

"...And that turned out to be why we DO NOT GO TO BEAR," Ami concluded. "But enough about my quest to save the world; how's yours?"

Hazō leaned back on the atrium sofa as he gathered his thoughts. "Do you want the good news, the bad news, the weird good news, or the weird bad news?"

"Weird bad news, duh."

"I am now the Great Prophet of Lord Jashin," Hazō said, giving a meaningful look down at the Jashinist regalia he was wearing in Gōketsu colours (Jiraiya really had been foresighted in making red one of the main colours). "I get pilgrims visiting me all the time, which is technically allowed because of Tsunade, and I have to officiate various major blood rites. This is all quite new, so Lord Hagoromo's still in the hospital recovering from his heart attack, but I have special dispensation from Naruto, so he can suck it up."

"Ah," Ami said after a few seconds. "So the good news is…"

"Yeah," Hazō said smugly. "I killed Akatsuki. This time last year, actually."

"All on your own?"

"Well, Kagome-sensei and Kei helped during the design stage, and we did need a bunch of people to lure Akatsuki into position," Hazō admitted, "but I was the one who came up with the Thousand-Yard Slayer rune and actually built and deployed it. It was brilliant, if I do say so myself: it deals mental Stress proportional to your TYS score, so civilians and genin just get knocked out, jōnin are put out of commission for weeks or months depending on seniority, and S-rankers…"

He flicked his hands open in a "boom, squish" gesture.

"Unfortunately," he said, "nobody told me that whoever kills the Great Prophet becomes the Great Prophet. And Naruto decided that having me fulfil the minimum requirements is better than Lord Jashin being disappointed in me and picking a new psychotic killer, and probably an enemy of Leaf, to give his highest blessing."

"So that's the good news and the weird good news," Ami concluded. "And the bad news?"

"The bad news," Hazō said, "is that the expedition into the afterlife has been delayed until we figure out where Orochimaru moved the rift. Apparently, Dr Yakushi was trying to appeal to him with some exciting vivisection or other and he put a decimal point in the wrong place.

"But at least there's the weird good news. Now that I've got tons of favour from Lord Jashin for defeating an epic foe, he's been willing to help me out with another séance. Akane says the afterlife is surprisingly youthful, and she's given me permission to manage my love life as I see fit while she waits for me to rescue her."

"Has she now?" Ami purred.

"Oh, no," Hazō said. "No, no, no. I was just telling you that to inform you of the facts, not because I was implying…"

"Lah lah lah, I'm not listening to anything inconvenient," Ami said, grinning as she put her fingers in her ears. "Seems like no sooner do I get back than it's time to start plotting how to get you to marry me again, and I promised Singularity to let her help me mess with you if we ever got out of the Bearutoverse alive. Oh, I can't wait."

"But Ami," Hazō pleaded, "we're family now. Doesn't that mean you can give the marriage thing a rest?"

Ami took her fingers out of her ears. "Excuse me, Mister My Stepsister Is My One True Love? No, Hazō, this is where it all begins."

"But why are we even skipping to marriage?" Hazō asked. "I mean, if you're taking this even slightly seriously, which I'm actually more confused about than I used to be, it's not like you even know if we're romantically compatible. Shouldn't we at least be going on instances of two individuals spending a day together in order to facilitate greater mutual knowledge and familiarity, arranged in anticipation of a potential long-term relationship or something?"

Hazō heard what was coming out of his mouth just a split second too late.

"Deal," Ami agreed with the speed of a chakra alligator snapping a genin out of mid-air. "I haven't got the Hokage to unseal my old quarters yet, and I haven't given you the specs to build my new room, so I'll be taking messages at the Nara compound to negotiate place and time. Now, gotta run. Dresses! Makeup! Concealed weapons! It's been so long since I went on a date with someone who existed!"

"Ami, wait, no–"

But the protest was purely symbolic. In persistently ignoring Mari's pleading to train his reflexes, Hazō had guaranteed that he wouldn't be able to catch a jōnin trying to escape before the facts caught up with her.

Worse, Kei was at the Nara compound. Had Hazō really survived the Battle of Sanity Sundered only to perish here?

-o-​

Kei's chopsticks clattered onto the table.

"Kindly repeat that, dear sister."

"And then he said that rushing into marriage was a bad idea and suggested dating first," Ami said cheerfully. "Well, technically he was talking about instances of two individuals spending a day together in order to facilitate greater mutual knowledge and familiarity, arranged in anticipation of a potential long-term relationship, but we all know what that means these days."

"I loathe linguistic drift," Kei muttered. "It is the bane of the aspiring author–which, to be clear, I am not and speak only in the abstract."

She put her hands together in a hand seal.

"Kei?" Shikamaru exclaimed with alarm. "I appreciate that this may be traumatic news, and far be it from me to interfere in a family matter, but I humbly request that you refrain from attempting to murder your sister with ninjutsu over the dining table–at least until after dessert."

"Shikamaru, have some sense. We are having carrot cake. But no, I am merely obeying a contingency. Shadow Clone Technique!"

Snowflake took only a few seconds to orient herself before fixing the entirety of her attention on Ami.

"Are you serious?" she demanded.

Ami gave a sweet smile. "Serious enough."

"You realise that this means war."

"War?" Ami repeated. "I don't believe Snow Country has ever tried to conquer anyone. Not that there's anything wrong with an isolationist foreign policy. In fact, it's probably the right call when you have no military to speak of and already know you'll just be repelled at the border. Now why don't you do the sensible thing and sit down with us for carrot cake?"

Snowflake wavered for all of three seconds. Then she stormed out, hands already reaching for the pink ribbon of triumph against all the odds.

Behind her, Ami gave Kei a wink. Shikamaru sighed, while Kei buried her head in her hands.

-o-​

It was dinnertime at the Gōketsu compound. Hazō had just finished saying Jashinist grace over the meal, and a perky Yuno had fetched everyone their peppermint tea. Kagome-sensei maintained that keeping any more Jashinist observance than they had to was pants-on-head crazy, but Kei had reluctantly pointed out that if Lord Jashin ever decided that Hazō was an unworthy spiritual leader, he would not only transfer the blessing to someone else, but in all likelihood immediately order them to murder their apostate predecessor. A Lord Jashin who had an active desire for Hazō's death and would keep sending new Great Prophets until one succeeded was a very different beast to the Lord Jashin who gave Hidan his powers and demanded bloodshed, but otherwise stayed neutral in human affairs. Fortunately, Naruto agreed that keeping a sort-of loyal Leaf ninja in the job was worth it to reliably prevent a second Hidan, even at the price of blasphemy.

That was why Hazō was busy sipping his peppermint tea (which had actually become much more pleasant over the last few months) when Snowflake strode into the dining room, the doors behind her flapping with the force of her entry.

"Snowflake!" Hazō exclaimed. "Good to see you. I had no idea you'd–"

The rest of the greeting was cut off as Snowflake reached him and, with the same relentless momentum, pulled him upright by his collar.

"Snowflake?!"

"Dear Hazō," Snowflake said in an even, formal tone. Then she kissed him.

Hazō's mind steadily went white with static, his heart beating ever faster as the kiss kept going. He should do something. Push her away? Reach out for her? Kiss her back? What was his tongue supposed to be doing right now? Maybe he should forget it all and just–

Snowflake pulled away abruptly.

"I await your response."

A beat.

"Yours, Snowflake."

Then, before Hazō could remember how to speak, she was gone.

The dining room was perfectly silent. Not a word. Not a motion. It took several seconds before Hazō remembered to do the obvious.

"Dispel!"

But the Dispelling Technique never saved him when it really counted. Not from Yuno's wide, shocked eyes. Not from Noburi's grin. Not from Mari's cat(?)-that-got-the-cream smile. Not from Kagome-sensei's stare of appalled, commiseratory horror.

And not from the velvet-soft, sweet nectar-like feeling on his lips.

-o-​

Voting is closed unless @eaglejarl reopens it.

 

[Velorien]

Future Interlude (AU?): Instances of Three Individuals, Part 2​

None of the events of that fateful day could explain how it had come to this.

There were not one but two women waiting for Hazō at the Asuma Fountain.

Hazō had argued. Hazō had reasoned. Hazō had begged. Hazō had nearly lied, but for the fact that either of them could have his exact schedule for the week with minimal effort. Neither would budge on this day and this hour.

Hazō was not good at first dates. He'd been on exactly two in his life, and one had been a special case (his bond with Akane had been too big for a date to be more than symbolic, and had come long after the confession that actually mattered) and the other, with his girlfriend's best friend within an already-negotiated relationship against a headache-inducing political backdrop, was hardly representative either.

Neither experience had prepared him for a first date with his sister by the transitive property, still-undefined direct family member, serial fiancée–honestly, it might be shorter just to say "Ami" if he wanted to convey the the weirdness of it–or with his sister's identical-but-different other self currently in a fulfilling pentad with said sister, who possessed firm and unyielding killing intent for those who would date Ami and who shared the memories but not the actuality of whatever Snowflake's feelings were, but who had actually also had a crush of her own…

Hazō would have to keep a clear record of his private life for posterity because any post-Uplift historian would be laughed out of the profession if they reconstructed this out of secondary evidence.

Of course, that would all require first surviving the date.

"Hazō," Ami said, waving at him past the crowd. "I hope I didn't keep you waiting."

"Of course you did not," Snowflake said. "You arrived exactly on time, as usual. I, on the other hand, arrived an hour early, thereby mitigating any risk of delay."

"You still have much to learn," Ami agreed.

The two could not have been more sharply contrasted. Ami was wearing the exact vest and trousers prescribed for first dates in Chapter 20 of My Vision, down to the bandolier of antidote vials, the all-purpose kunai, the backup kunai, and the emergency kunai. Even the yellow rhombus badge indicating to the watching secret police that one was on a first date, and thus their partner had not yet been cleared of treasonous intent, was in place below her left shoulder. Between their current location, her well-known general outlook on life, her knowledge of exactly how treasonous he was, and the treasonous plotting they'd already participated in together, it was ironic on at least four different levels, and Hazō was sure he was missing more.

Oh, five. She was wearing blue with orange accents–the personal colours of the Mizukage who, according to her own reports, had removed My Vision from the mandatory Academy curriculum and was in the process of dismantling the rest of Yagura's legacy with the fierce support of the AMI.

The orange, as it happened, nicely matched Snowflake's season-appropriate kimono, a thing of abstract red, orange and yellow patterns evocative of autumn leaves (all very un-Kei colours, Hazō noted in passing). Unusually, Snowflake wore two yellow ribbons, worn symmetrically like hair ties, and Hazō made a note to ask Yuno about this afterwards. (He definitely didn't want to ask Snowflake herself in case the answer was either something embarrassing to her, like "true love", or something embarrassing to him, like "when will this walrus of a man finally notice my feelings?")

Hazō was ever so grateful to Mari for the fashion advice that saved him the headache of trying to match their obvious effort.

"You two both look great," he said. "No, exceptional."

Challenge the first: he had to figure out unique compliments for each of their outfits that did not, Sage forbid, make one sound an iota better than the other. He wasn't that stupid.

Or would Snowflake be displeased if he made them equal? The Kei base model balked at any attempt to draw equivalence between her unworthy self and the divinity that was Ami. But then again, last he heard, Snowflake was furious with Ami, so did that change things? Gah.

This was not a thing anyone had ever had to deal with on a first date before.

"Ami, I love the countless layers making up those clothes, and also how the lines of the visible kunai make my eyes follow your figure and skip over the weapons hidden in your vest. Yagura would hate you with a fiery passion and grudging respect."

Ami preened.

"Snowflake, I love the varied, vibrant colours of your kimono. I think they express how much aliveness and energy you have beneath that collected exterior, and at the same time that translucent shawl gives the whole thing a transient feeling that's appropriate on a more subtle level."

Snowflake blushed and looked away.

Ami looked Hazō up and down.

"You've managed to impress me right back, and I've got to tell you, that takes some doing considering my, shall we say, variety of experience. You've got guts, making that kind of statement to two sisters who aren't exactly on threesome terms right now."

"O-On what?!" Snowflake stuttered, mirroring Hazō's internal reaction.

Dammit, Mari.

"That blue hakama and white jacket combo symbolises foam on the waves," Ami explained to Snowflake, "in other words, vigorous, wet activity, in other words, expecting to bag your date before the night is over. Mist seduction specs sometimes wear it to get the sex kami to back them up when they only have one night to complete a hard seduction mission.

"In Mist, wearing it on the first date is very bold. Wearing it on the first date with two women, who happen to be sisters, one of whom can't even handle talking about sex–no offence, Snowflake–well, that's hardcore. A man shows he's got balls that big, he's either about to find himself getting closely acquainted with the nearest body of water or he's halfway to a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Snowflake was now a deep crimson to match the darkest parts of her kimono. She opened and closed her mouth, but no words came out.

Hazō decided it would be suicidal to try to bluff his way through this.

"Mari picked it for me," he confessed. "I spent ages agonising over what the best outfit would be for this before I gave up and asked her for advice, and by the second hour, she'd more or less taken over the process."

"...huh."

Ami looked Hazō up and down again.

"Well, that's interesting. I mean, on the surface, that's clearly just a message to me: take him if you can, that sort of thing. Permission, maybe even encouragement. But then you have to think about it in a social spec context. Is she saying, take him in your capacity as a seduction expert, which means no getting actually attached? Or is that an overly primitive reading? After all, there's the master-apprentice level, where the medium is part of the message and you can't communicate without a test, and also you could take it as an allusion to the personal relationship between Mari and me, and how it's evolved over time. Then when you add in Snowflake, and Mari's relationship with Snowflake, and what Mari knows I know about her relationship with Snowflake…"

Hazō tuned Ami out in favour of focusing on Mari's other victim.

"I really am sorry about that," he said. "We were overdue for an embarrassing Mari prank."

"N-Not at all," Snowflake said. "But just to be clear, are you expressing a preference for a… a…"

Hazō had honestly not considered it until this moment. This date alone was already well past what he'd expected his romantic future to look like a week ago. He'd had to keep telling himself that this was a unique opportunity: having accidentally talked Ami down from marriage to dating, all he had to do was provide direct proof that they weren't romantically compatible, and then this entire issue could finally be put to be–settled once and for all. (And if it turned out they were romantically compatible, at least he'd be walking into his doom with his eyes open.)

As for Snowflake, he was at a complete loss. Hazō had spent years unsure whether Ami felt any actual attraction for him, and those years were still going even right now, but he'd been confident that Snowflake only saw him as a good friend. Why had she kissed him? It didn't seem like a friendly greeting kiss, and so far this didn't seem like a friends-hanging-out type of date. It was so confusing. Worse, when he thought about it, he couldn't deny that while his relationship with Kei had settled into a comfortably platonic, fraternal form, the Kei base model was attractive in its own right, a lunar counterpart to Akane's sun, and Snowflake in particular–

"Only," Snowflake said, growing tense in the face of his distracted silence, "at this time, I would prefer–I mean not that I am establishing a conclusive dispreference for–which is to say the issue of context–but I by no means wish to imply that I am somehow… Hazō, do you understand what I am trying to say?"

Not remotely.

"I think we should return to this topic at a later date," Hazō said cautiously, "if circumstances are appropriate."

"So you wish for there to be a later date?" Snowflake clarified.

Gah.

Hazō looked to Ami in hopes of rescuing the conversation, which in retrospect was a crazy way of thinking.

"...but she'd be expecting me to play on a level above that…" Ami muttered to herself, counting something off on her fingers.

"I do wish to apologise about… before," Snowflake said, mercifully changing the subject. "I had previously been following a strategy co-designed with Kei, which revolved around extensive gathering of data in order to create an ideal opportunity for confession that maximised the odds of success while minimising the danger of rejection. But… in the moment, it occurred to me that Kei is not actually very good at romance, and I decided to do the exact opposite of what she would do. I… I realise now that the result was excessively forceful and one-sided, and surely so unromantic that you are here only out of pity."

"I… wouldn't say that," Hazō said. "Surprising, certainly. And I could probably have reacted better, or at all, but it's not like I was traumatised. It didn't make me think worse of you is what I'm trying to say."

Snowflake's shoulders sagged slightly in relief.

"I still cannot believe I did that. Kei literally beat her head against the wall, though not for long, since it was late and we did not wish to wake up Shikamaru.

"So…" she continued after a long pause during which Ami could be heard positing a clan-wide conspiracy, "how was it?"

Hazō cast his mind back to the urgent, untameable feel of her tongue in his mouth.

"...Good," he said, feeling himself blush. "It was good."

"I'm glad," she said with just as much awkwardness. "All those hours practising with Tenten finally paid off."

This finally snapped Ami out of her fugue.

"Seriously, Snowflake? You're on your first date, and you're going to talk about how you practised for your first kiss with him with another girl?"

"Oh," Snowflake said. "Oh. That was a… terrible faux pas, wasn't it? I am so sorry."

"Nah, not necessarily," Ami said. "It's a high-risk move, but if you can get the guy thinking about how hot it is for you to be kissing another girl, that's a critical hit. A lot of guys are into that for some reason, and once he's turned on by thoughts of you and kissing–well, you've basically won, haven't you?

"Still, it's not a beginner technique. Especially when things get poly, talking about your other partners can bring in whole layers of complexity. You don't want to pretend they're not there–especially not when we're already one big dodecahedron of incestuousness where everyone is connected to everyone else–but on a first date, try to keep things simple. Trust me."

She grinned alarmingly at Hazō. "Luckily for you, we can settle this one here and now. Hazō, are you turned on or off by the idea of Snowflake kissing another girl?"

But this wasn't Hazō's first rodeo. With Ami, it paid to be ready for questions to which there existed no safe answer.

"I'm flattered Snowflake considered me worth the practice," he said. "Also, don't you mean 'dodecagon'? A dodecahedron is a 3D shape. Believe me, the extra dimension can be decisive."

"Nope," Ami said. "I've learned a lot on my travels. My personal shipping chart currently covers three Paths and two levels of reality. Maybe two and a half. Unfortunately, Singularity made me swear never to show it to anyone for fear of the consequences.

"But enough about cosmic forces that could undo my return and maybe even the entire year that led up to it if I tick them off too badly. Where are you taking us for our date, Gōketsu Hazō?"

-o-​

"There is one immortal tradition for brave couples–or, well, triples–on their first date in Leaf," Hazō began. "One place where the pure of stomach are rewarded while the unprepared receive their just desserts."

Both girls tensed.

"And we will not be going there."

Ami relaxed.

Snowflake muttered something to herself that sounded a lot like "weeks of preparation down the drain".

"The Yabai Café will have to manage without us today," Hazō said, "because we'll be doing something much more fun."

"I knew I could count on you," Ami said. "What have you got in mind?"

"The three of us," Hazō said dramatically, "will be entering a civilian cooking competition!"

Ami beamed. Snowflake, however, gave him a piercingly sanity-checker look.

"What's wrong?" Ami asked." Don't tell me you think Hazō could respect a kunoichi who can't protect the stupendously-expensive kimono that she expects to be wearing for rest of the date–maybe less if things go really well–while not only cooking but being surrounded by a bunch of clumsy civilian cooks wielding all sorts of colourful sauces?"

Oh. Oops.

"If anything," Ami said, "I think I'm the one being unfairly handicapped here. Do you not remember eating my cooking?"

Snowflake smiled sweetly. "I'm glad you recognise that you don't belong in this competition, dear sister. It would be best for you to bow out now and waste no more time. I have already proved my willingness to risk losing face for the sake of the final goal."

"Uh," Hazō said. "Actually, I did think of that issue. There is a special award for the Most Unique Dish."

"Hazō," Ami declared, "I officially love you and want you to have my babies."

"Uh…"

"Biosealing," Ami said to the unvoiced objection. "I know it's next on your list."

"If he was going to conduct that kind of research," Snowflake said, "obviously his focus would be technique hacking."

"It would?" Ami asked innocently.

"Of course," Snowflake said, "for the purposes of extending shadow clone duration to–"

She froze. "Um, I mean… what kind of category is 'Most Unique Dish' anyway? Uniqueness is binary. Either a thing is unique or it is not. I should file a complaint with the Merchant Council over deceptive advertising practices."

"Uniqueness is relative," Ami disagreed. "You are unique as an individual, but you are less unique than, say, Noburi because there's half a dozen other Snowflakes running around at any given time."

"I am not less unique than Noburi," Snowflake said heatedly, "and you are wilfully misusing terminology with malicious intent."

"Excuse me? This is perfectly ordinary pedantic intent, thank you very much."

Hazō just sighed and kept leading them to the competition site.

-o-​

What do you do?

Voting closes on Aug 3, 2024 at 1:00 PM

 

[Velorien]

Future Interlude (AU?): Instances of Three Individuals, Part 3​

"Just to check," Snowflake asked, "but is this cooking competition perchance being hosted by visitors from Hidden Rock, or perhaps Hidden Rain?"

"Hot Springs, actually," Hazō said. "Why?"

"Because storing ingredients outdoors in this heat seems like an excellent recipe for spoilage and mass food poisoning," Snowflake said. "It would be an original vector of attack, targeting the civilian population while evading standard anti-terrorism countermeasures like the Byakugan and maintaining plausible deniability."

"Actually," Hazō said, "that's part of the point. The competition is there to drum up publicity for Okamura Foods opening its first ever Leaf branch, to and show off how they use storage scrolls to make sure their food's still fresh after weeks on the road."

"Ooh," Ami perked up (not that she had been anything less than alarmingly perky since the start of the date). "That's Okamura Seiji's company. The Mori use him as a case study. Apparently, he used to be an ordinary travelling salesman, but then he somehow got word of the Cold Stone Killers incident days before anyone else, and it changed his life. He sold off all his goods and took out a bunch of loans in Rice, and then bought out all his rivals–them being bankrupt after they arrived in Hot Springs with luxuries nobody was there to buy and perishables that had all perished while they were stuck waiting for the borders to reopen. Then he snapped up property left, right, and centre while the Hot Springs economy was in freefall, managed to get in good with the Mist occupation, and by the time the dust had settled and business was booming again, he was the second most important person in the country after the Lord of the Burning Waters. Some would even say first, considering how much influence Hidden Hot Springs has lost now that AMITY's made DMZs obsolete."

"You're very well-informed, My Lady," the civilian at the sign-up desk told her. "Unfortunately, this is a cooking competition for the common people. No ninja or ninja magic allowed."

"Why would you think we were ninja?" Hazō asked. "It's not like we're wearing forehead protectors or clan colours or anything."

Actually, that reminded him: he glanced down to make sure his seal pouch was still there. One did not go on a date with Mori Ami without being prepared for anything short of the apocalypse (and also for the apocalypse, because when it came, odds were good Ami would be the one to cause it).

"I have a certificate signed by the Seventh Hokage himself confirming that I am a civilian of the Fire Country," Snowflake added smugly. "Would you like to see it?"

The man at the desk slowly looked between Hazō, Snowflake, and Ami, his gaze lingering briefly on the latter (who really did look very fetching in her My Vision dating outfit). He glanced behind him, at the distant figures of the judges, but they were turned away, talking among themselves.

"My humblest apologies, My Lady," he said, bowing his head contritely. "It seems I was mistaken. Please feel free to head into the competition area, honourable commoners just like myself."

It was good to know that Hazō still had it despite not investing in Deceit since he was a genin.

"Ugh," Snowflake muttered, glancing at the rule sheet pinned up by the entrance. "I see Okamura Foods employs the same proofreader as the Leaf broadsheet, which is to say an eyeless cave fish which is additionally blind drunk, and of course possesses neither the power of speech nor limbs with which to indicate errors in the text."

"And also doesn't understand the concept of proofreading, being a fish and all," Ami added after taking a look for herself. "But it's all good. Where there's room for ambiguity, there's room for creativity, as the lawyer said to the shrine maiden.

"Speaking of which," she added, "if this is a competition, there's got to be a prize to make it worth the fight–or maybe a forfeit. I love forfeits."

"Go on," Hazō said warily, his missing-nin danger sense not so much tingling as putting on a full symphony orchestra performance with extra trumpets.

"How about this," Ami said. "Whichever of us gets the lowest score has to confess our true feelings to Hazō before the date is over."

Snowflake stared. "D-Don't be ridiculous! I fail to see why anyone would–"

"Lacking confidence, are we?" Ami purred. "Maybe you don't care about him as much as I thought. Or maybe you used up your lifetime supply of courage with that famous kiss of yours?"

Famous kiss? Dammit, Mari.

"I'm no expert," Ami said. "No, that's a lie, I'm a world-class expert, and I'm pretty sure Hazō is into bold, forthright women who don't hide how they feel. Just look at Akane. Buuut, if you're willing to let me win by default…"

"Hold on," Hazō protested, partly for the sake of Snowflake, who was turning all kinds of interesting colours, but partly for his own safety. "That doesn't work. What if I get the lowest score?"

"Same thing," Ami said. "You pick whichever of us you like more and confess your true feelings to her. Of course," she added, giving Snowflake a smug look, "we already know who that's going to be."

This was going to be a bloodbath.

"F-Fine!" Snowflake exclaimed unexpectedly just as Hazō was about to protest further. "Then I will see you on the battlefield!"

Hazō could only watch helplessly as she strode off towards the baking ingredients, picking up an apron and a bag of flour with the gravity of a woman arming and armouring herself to challenge the gods themselves.

Ami, monster that she was, just giggled a little before heading off to browse the meat and fish storage scrolls.

Hazō, lacking their momentum, stood in thought for a couple of minutes, scanning through his mental list of recipes capable of challenging two masters of optimisation. He had too little breadth of experience and too much sanity to challenge Ami for "Most Unique Dish", and too little information to guess what strategy Snowflake, whom he'd never seen cook, might choose. In the end, he decided to go with a dish both delicious and guaranteed to be new to even the most jaded gourmet: Kagome-sensei's definitely-won't-poison-you stew, the urban evolution of the legendary probably-won't-poison-you stew that had kept them going through brutal months in the wilderness (as long as they made sure at least one person ate something else that meal).

-o-​

Hazō's stew bubbled away merrily, mere minutes from completion and the certain victory that would save him from mortally offending one of his two dates. On the far side of the arena, Snowflake was pulling a tray out of the oven with the unique alertness of a woman who would cease to exist if she so much as brushed against it. And at the judges' dais…

"Miss Ori Mami, please present your dish for judgement!"

Ami crossed the arena with the pride and poise of a cat carrying a dead bird home to her unsuspecting owner. From here, Hazō couldn't quite make out what was on her plate.

"Please accept my humble offering, Master Okamura."

Okamura studied the dish in front of him, a smile slowly spreading across his face.

"Why, this arrangement looks just like the symbol of the little trading company I ran before I founded Okamura's, back when the future was a mystery and I had to live every day on my wits. Goodness, that brings back memories. If this tastes half as good as it looks…"

Ami picked up the chopsticks from the plate before Okamura could, quickly scooping up a piece of her mysterious food and lifting it towards him. He opened his mouth–

-o-​

"I've never seen anything like it," Noburi said with bitter wonder as he stepped back from the bed. "'Stunned', 'Overwhelmed', and 'Undone', all from a single bite. I've never even heard of 'Undone' before, and I'll remind you I've read Orochimaru's medical research notes. If this poor sod had taken a single shift of stress more, it would've been curtains. What the hell did you feed him?"

"Sushi," Ami said innocently.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Sushi," Ami repeated. "Just ordinary madara nigiri. You can't tell me that sounds remotely dubious."

Noburi looked back and forth between Ami and Okamura's comatose form.

"You mean to tell me you did this with uncooked, salted fish and plain rice? How? Why? How?"

"Will he survive?" Snowflake asked. "My romantic entanglement with Ami and Hazō is hardly worth the life of an innocent man."

"Your what?!" Noburi demanded. "No, you know what. Never mind. I don't want to know. Yes, he'll survive, and yes, you're in for the lawsuit from hell once he wakes up. Once he finds out a bunch of ninja poisoned him after illegally infiltrating the competition…"

"Oh, I wouldn't worry too much about that," Ami said. "I made sure to grab a copy of the rules on my way out. They quite clearly say that nobody can be held liable if the competition gets cancelled because of an act of cod."

-o-​

Voting is closed.

 

[eaglejarl]

Author's Note: There was confusion two weeks ago about who was writing the update. Both @Paperclipped and I worked on our own versions of it, but when the confusion was recognized his had involved a great deal more effort so we went with that one.

I have been invited to another games day today and thus won't have time for writing, so I'm copping out and sharing the version of chapter 665 that I created. This is an alternate timeline and NOT canon.

---

(Interlude, λ Timeline)
Chapter 665: A Slice of Torture​

"You know we'll have to kill them?" Cancurunchu asked quietly.

"...Yeah," Hazō said.

"It's the mission. We're here to kill them, and it doesn't matter which ones. They've all come across the border at one time or another, killed members of my pack or the pack of someone here."

"Not the cubs."

"These two aren't cubs. And the whole point of this mission is that if we show what we can do to them, we might not have to do any more of it."

"Are you sure we can do it? That fight wasn't the one-sided stomp I would have preferred."

"Really? Two of them dead, two of them fled, and two captured. Canrippu is limping but still combat effective and everyone else is fine. I call that a highly successful combat."

"Really. Two of them waited to attack instead of coordinating, allowing us to defeat them in detail. Two of them used what would have been highly effective jutsu had they landed, but they happened to choose targets who were well suited to defeating those attacks—me because I'm heavily trained in resisting genjutsu and Canzappu because his fragile body means he has heavily trained in dodging. We couldn't even see them well enough to attack for much of the fight. If they had worked together more effectively, some or all of us would have died."

Cancurunchu snorted. "That's the thing about leopards: they don't work together. What we saw is typical of their tactics. They strike from ambush and they strongly prefer weak or injured prey, so their natural inclination is to wait for an opportune moment instead of risking themselves in an immediate attack. When you meet a group that's larger than a mated pair you generally get exactly this—one or two courageous ones rush in while others hang back and wait for the first group to injure some targets that can then be picked off. They also don't tend to defend each other."

"Unless they are a mated pair?"

"Unless they are a mated pair."

"You keep using words like 'usually' and 'tend to'. Not reassuring. You said that Hyōhakken is trying to get them to be more social. Presumably that includes actively training them as well as making them live together. Suppose we run into a larger group that has taken the training to heart. We all burned a lot of chakra in that fight, so do you think we could handle six or eight leopards who were working together efficiently?"

Cancurunchu chewed the air unhappily.

"Look, let me interrogate them. We can get a sense of what's in the area and then make the call."

The dog turned his head, eyes flicking to Hazō and then away in discomfort. "The way you described your style of interrogation... Dogs don't usually do that."

"As far as I know, dogs also don't have any experience with what humans think of as war. For which you should be grateful."

Flick, flick. "I know that one of the biggest advantages of having a summoner is that they bring new ideas and new ways, but..."

"Look, I won't do it if you think I shouldn't. We can kill them and move on."

"...No, I see the value. I'm just not comfortable with it."

"For the record, neither am I. Doesn't mean I won't do it."

Cancurunchu chewed the air. Then he sighed and raised his head, meeting Hazō's gaze firmly again. "No, let's do it. What do you need from me?"

"I can do it myself but they likely aren't familiar enough with humans to consider me a threat. It would be helpful to have a big, scary dog standing with me. Who in this group do you think they would find scariest?"

"I'll do it. I'm not going to ask the others to do this."

"If it's that much of an issue, are you sure you want to do this? We can just bail."

"No, it'll be useful. Come on before I change my mind."

"Right."

The two severely wounded leopards, Hyōrōbā and Hyōfajī, had been chased down and encircled by four dogs apiece. The dogs had barked and growled and threatened, but had held back from actually attacking, instead simply keeping the leopard trapped between them until Hazō could arrive and throw a net over them. (Storage seals were so handy!) Both leopards were now staked down a short distance apart, one of Kagome-sensei's wooden barricades between them so neither could see the other. A Silence Mine seal next to each of them muffled sound enough that normal conversation at the other leopard's position should be inaudible, but loud noises would be clear. Loud noises such as screams of pain.

Hazō sauntered up to Hyōfajī, Cancurunchu beside him. The dog leader stood over their prisoner, studying him silently. Hazō crouched down a few feet from the leopard's head and started unsealing objects and laying them out in neat rows.

A hibachi full of hot coals and a metal poker with a leather-wrapped handle. He stuck the end of the poker in the coals to heat.

A rolled-up leather case with a dozen knives, chisels, and hammers of various shapes and sizes. It was a woodworking kit intended to be a gift for Kagome-sensei, but the leopard didn't need to know that.

A garrote made from thin ninja wire and oak handles.

A pair of long-handled forceps.

The most recent issue of the News of the Noble Leaf broadsheet.

He arranged the items with fussy precision, ensuring that each was in precisely the right orientation and position relative to the rest.

Hyōfajī, trapped under his staked-down net, watched all this with yellow eyes wide.

"Here's the thing, leopard," Cancurunchu said at last, refusing to use the name that the prisoner had volunteered when captured. "We're here to kill a bunch of you as part of a punitive raid. Personally, I don't really care which ones we kill. Lord Cannai doesn't either, so long as we don't kill cubs. I was going to slit your throat and move on but our summoner convinced me that we should interrogate you.

"We were assigned to kill twelve of you and we've already got two. You and your friend are going to be numbers three and four, so the only question is how it happens."

The prisoner hissed and spit. "I knew you dogs were scum! You—"

He yelped and went silent as Hazō smacked him in the face with the rolled-up broadsheet.

"It will be polite," Hazō said mildly.

"You're both going to die, but one of you is going to die quickly and painlessly," Cancurunchu said, continuing as though he hadn't been interrupted. "The other one..." He shook his head.

"The other one gets skinned," Hazō said. "My slippers have worn out and I need to re-line them."

The prisoner looked at him in disbelief.

Hazō shrugged. "I was going to make a rug, but you're both too cut up already. Slippers are easy." He turned back to check on how the poker was heating.

"Help me out here," Cancurunchu said. "Lord Cannai assigned him as mission leader, so I can't just order him to leave you alone. I did at least get him to agree that if you gave us useful information then he could get his slippers from the next group."

Hyōfajī snorted. "You wouldn't."

Hazō pulled the poker out of the fire and considered the tip. It glowed a dull red, so he pressed it against the leopard's nose.

The cat screamed, the noise tearing through the protection of the Silence Mine and echoing across the landscape. A short distance away, the rest of the dogs shuffled uncomfortably.

Hazō put the poker back in the coals and blew on them to heat them up. He let it sit for a few seconds while the leopard gasped for breath, then he pressed a seal up against the handle of the poker and vanished it back into storage space.

"Be right back," he said. "We need to go do the same thing to the other guy. It's only fair."

He and Cancurunchu walked off.

Two minutes later another scream echoed across the landscape. A minute after that, another. Yet another minute and man and dog were back, Hazō kneeling next to the leopard's head.

"We told your friend that he needed to get burned because you mouthed off," Cancurunchu said. "And we explained the thing about one of you dying easy and the other one hard. He cursed at us, so we burned his eye out. Now we have to do it to you too."

"Wait, hold on—AGGGHHHH!"

Cancurunchu waited a moment and then asked, "In case it's not clear, any time either of you lies, both of you get punished and we switch who we're talking to. You can't control whether or not he lies, so your best chance is to be honest with us so that we don't switch back to him." He paused, studying the prisoner. "We have some questions if you feel like talking."

"What do you want to know?" The words were broken up by gasping breaths.

"What was your target in Dog?"

"No specific target. We were just going to find a pack and kill them." He cringed as Hazō frowned.

"I'm telling the truth!"

Hazō lifted the poker out of the hibachi consideringly.

"He means it," Cancurunchu said. "They never have a specific target."

Hazō grunted in disappointment and put the poker back in the coals.

"How many Leopards are nearby?"

"I don't know. I don't! Keep him back!"

"I'm really not allowed to do that," Cancurunchu said. "I'm sorry. I don't like it any more than you do, but what can you do? Humans are savages. Getting him to promise to kill one of you easy was the best I could manage."

"We move around! There aren't any fixed camps like the pangolins have. I don't know who's in the area!"

"Not very helpful," Hazō mused, studying one of his knives.

"There was a pride north of here two days ago," the prisoner said quickly. "Two dozen of them, assuming they haven't had any more internal fights. And there's probably a few other raiding groups around."

"How big is an average raid group these days?"

"Eight to ten. Sometimes more."

Hazō sighed in disgust and reached for the poker.

"Come on, now," Cancurunchu said. "Don't lie to us. There were only six in your group."

"No, wait—AAGGGHHHH!"

"Be right back," Hazō said, sealing up the poker and the hibachi again.

Moments later another scream echoed forth from the other leopard. The world was silent again thereafter, until five minutes later another scream shattered the day.

When Hazō and Cancurunchu returned, the prisoner started gabbling out words as fast as he could, hoping to prevent what was about to happen. It was to no avail.

"Sorry about that," Hazō said, putting the poker back in the fire and adding some more charcoal while the prisoner sobbed and recovered from the agony. "The other guy lied to us and it's not fair to only punish one of you."

"How many did you say were in an average raid group?" Cancurunchu asked.

"It varies! Lord Hyōhakken wants us to work in groups of eight to ten, but usually there's an argument and some people break away, go off and do their own thing. I don't know what the average is going to be...six, maybe? Five?"

Cancurunchu nodded. "You said there was a settlement here a few days ago. How far away?"

The prisoner hesitated. "Maybe...two hours? Less if you run."

"What sort of skill levels should we expect from that group?"

"Lord Hyōhakken is putting a lot more effort into compelling the prides to stay together than he is for the raid groups. There's typically at least one senior warrior for every six members of a pride. Sometimes more. It depends on where the pride is. He forced some people to migrate in order to join their assigned pride, but he tried not to make them go too far. He wanted them to stay on terrain they were familiar with as much as possible."

"And the prides are how big?"

"Usually a couple dozen. Sometimes as small as one, sometimes as large as three. One dozen and three dozen, I mean." The last words were hasty, the prisoner wanting to ensure that he couldn't be accused of deception for simple unclarity.

"What protections are the sites going to have?"

"Protections? What— AAAGGHHHH!"

"Hazō," Cancurunchu said, his voice filled with reproof, "don't do that when the poor thing is simply confused. Asking clarifying questions isn't the same as lying."

Hazō snorted. "It's a standard Academy-level technique for interrogation resistance. Pretend to be stupid so that the interrogator spends all their time clarifying things instead of asking questions. If you're good at it you can get them so tangled up they forget what they originally asked."

Cancurunchu sighed. "You humans. All right, let's go punish the other one and then see if he'll answer the question."

The grisly night wended on, much to the dismay of the two prisoners.

o-o-o-o​

Two of the leopards from the original raid, Hyōspotto and Hyōkamumono, had escaped the pack's pursuit. Hyōkamumono kept running for an entire day and night, but Hyōspotto was made of sterner stuff. He found a nearby pride and convinced them to send a strong force to deal with the intruders. Nine experienced leopard warriors ranged across the land, casting about until they found the trail of the dogs. They traced it to a place that smelled of blood and burned meat and urine. It wasn't hard to tell why; there were four leopard corpses, two of them covered in small burns. One of the burned ones had been cleanly decapitated, the head left leaning against its rear so that it appeared from a distance to be facing the wrong way. The other of the burned corpses had died...less cleanly.

All four corpses were drenched in the urine of a troop of dogs, and one other source that smelled unfamiliar.

The leopards growled their seething anger and loped off, following the trail. The dogs showed little skill at concealing their trail; their scent was barely concealed and they left occasional pawprints or disturbed stones and grasses in their wake.

The night was passing by the time the leopards caught up to their quarry. Their leader, Hyōmanuke, snorted in disgust at the sight of the dogs' encampment.

In fairness, the dogs had found a steep-sided swale that protected them from the wind and prevented their scent from being blown outwards across the prairie. The floor of the swale was lush grass, knee high and undoubtedly making comfortable beds.

So comfortable, in fact, that the sentry had fallen asleep. All eight dogs were curled up, tails over noses, motionless as the dead. In the center of the camp was a rectangular metal thing filled with dimly-glowing coals that undoubtedly filled the immediate area with blissful warmth to ward off the night's soft chill. The weird biped that Hyōspotto had described was asleep closest to the metal thing, its disgustingly pale, furless skin obviously more vulnerable to the cold than a sensible Seventh Path coat would be.

At a gesture from Hyōmanuke, the leopards backed down the hill to take a quick council.

"You two, circle around to the south. You and you, the east. You and you, west. The rest of us will stay here. I'll give you five minutes and then we attack on my signal. One rush, kill all of the little fuckers and crunch their bones. Got it?"

There was a chorus of affirmatives and warrior shadows disappeared into the night.

Hyōmanuke waited, counting silently to himself. When he reached three hundred he charged over the hilltop, bounding down the steep sides of the swale in a skitter of disturbed earth that was too quiet to waken the idiot canine invaders. He waited until he was halfway down the hill to pull shadows around himself, trusting his compatriots to see his charge and follow. With many groups he wouldn't have done it this way, but he knew this group and they worked well together.

The steps of the leopards were too silent, their shadow protection too thorough, to give any hint of the attack. The stupid dogs didn't so much as twitch as an unstoppable avalanche of furred death rushed down upon them—

Hyōmanuke's death was so sudden he didn't even know he'd been killed. One moment he was leaping to the attack, the next he was coming apart into blood and chunks of meat small enough to be put in a stew.

His shadow cloak vanished as he died, allowing the other leopards to see what had happened. They were so shocked that, just for an instant, none of them thought to stop their charge. Two more passed through the screen of skyslicers that wrapped around the pretended canine encampment.

The remaining six leopards slammed on the brakes, struggling to turn aside or reverse course, but it was difficult to do on the steep slopes. Another passed through the invulnerable and ontologically immobile spider-silk netting and splashed into stew meat.

One leopard, luckier and stronger than the rest, leaped upwards with all her might and managed to clear the netting that she couldn't see and dropped into the middle of the 'encampment'. A short distance from the ground she passed through a shudder of chakra and saw the truth concealed by the illusion of the Scenery Clone Seal Array.

The array captured the image of an area at a given instant and projected an illusion of that image over the protected area. Hazō had captured the image of himself and the dogs asleep and helpless, then set up skyslicers around the image, after which he and the dogs trotted off (this time exercising rather more trail discipline than they had while baiting in the enemy) over the border into Dog to sleep for the night and recover chakra. They would check back in the morning to see if their trap had caught anything.

Eight.

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