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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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Buggy said:
Well, being a gardener is important, but it isn't the most glamorous job. I can understand if she want to spice it up a bit by calling it something fancy.
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It gets better since she is also a fox yōkai, though if she has nine tails, they were not demonstrated in the first episode. (It's a good first episode, incidentally--anyone looking for cute supernatural slice-of-life should check it out).
 
Shrooms said:
Who says it's a thing you can choose not to resist? We (maybe) saw Jiraiya trying to fight it, but who is to say his outcries actually did anything to resist the effects? We don't know enough to make declarative statements like this. And the consequences of being wrong could be the literal end of the world (as with many things in this setting). To say nothing of how little we really know about Pain's motives.
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eaglejarl said:
In the instant before the world became fire and pain, Hazō enacted the one final preparation that he had not and would never tell anyone about: Within the depths of his mind, he whispered a prayer to the mad god Jashin, Lord of Death and Sex. Lord Jashin, if you're there...please help this work. He is an excellent killer, a sex fiend, and I miss him.
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We asked Lord Jashin for help, then continued researching and Lord Jashin send Hidan to kill Asuma. (Who left a pregnant Wife, so everythings ok!)

Then Akatsuki took the research.

Jashin wants someone to go to the Maybe-Naraka Path, put he is being mean to us :(
 
I'll kick things off with some flattery and a pep talk here. Mirror EJ a bit a guess.

It is disheartening to see so many of the long time players fall into some degree of... I'm not sure what to call it.... accelerationist ennui?

To me, as a reader, occasional lurker, and person existing on the fringes of this wonderful community this seems borderline unaccountable. We've come so far, and against such odds! I'm astounded everytime I think about it, and even my closest and nerdiest friends make fun of me for how much I proselytize this work and this community.

Yet I can try to emphasize.

You, my target audience, the active players and voters, are incredibly engaged in this quest.

For goodness sake we just hit 10k and a quarter million posts! Most of this text is of course, the players and not our dear QMs All those words represent time and effort and intellectual labor. Its a non-trivial amount of effort just to lurk the thread consistently, much less effectively contribute (hence my general lack of personal contributions). That's just on the thread alone. Not even counting discord and all the various community documents and spreadsheets.

It has been my experience that my sort of... relative subjective experience of MFD Time vs IRL time is heavily correlated with "how much real life time do I spend thinking about MFD vs how much is happening in MFD plotwise".

Which is to say: active players are putting a lot more work into MFD for a given amount of plot progress than readers are. I would imagine this can make it feel like the plot is slower for active players than it does for readers.

That said...

I am extremely grateful to EJs post injecting some sorely needed hope into the thread! This doesn't have to be some binary between two hard and horrible choices. This thread, you players, have a long and storied history of making absolute genius ass-pulls and flipping things on their head even in the most dire of circumstances.

The one moment that always sticks out in my head is when Zabuza stormed into that international meeting during the Chunin exams and nearly triggered a world war before we utterly derailed his plans by antagonizing him into non lethal violence.

---

As I see it there are two main problems with Stay In Leaf:

1. We're about to loose our relative FOOM advantage.

2. We're worried about being turned into a loot piñata for Itachi.

The problems with Leave Leaf are

1. Everyone we leave behind will suffer to some degree or another.

2. We'll most likely be Public Enemy #1 for the Akatsuki.

3. We'll most certainly be Loot Piñata #1 for everyone on the fucking planet.

4. Corollary to 2 and 3, we know that at least one esoteric method of tracking us exists. Where there is one there might be more. We should expect out of context problems due to enemies with unknown, esoteric and out of context abilities.

---

Luckily point 1 for both scenerios can be mitigated through socials.

The biggest potential problem with losing relative FOOM advantage, as I see it, is forever losing the possibility of outstripping Orochimaru. As far as I see it, this might as well be a straight up loss condition. The man is Ninja Wizard Mengale.

However, Naruto also shares many of our reservations regarding Orochimaru. The man isn't stupid, but he has an entire new field of biorunes to work on. It seems feasible that with the help of Naruto and Mari we could keep things underwraps for awhile. Hide the full extent of FOOMs benefits and possibilities from Orochimaru.

Pretty much anyone else in Leaf that Naruto might nominate for FOOM training are people we can work with, marginalize, or subjugate without having to probably actually murder them one day. It would still REALLY suck to lose the FOOM multipliers we've spent IRL years otpmizing our builds for.

Yet this to can be mitigated. Yes Leaf is a military dictatorship. Yet we're a major power player, the dictator isn't as strong as they could be, are generally "nice" and more importantly allied. Which is to say: we do have SOME leverage. Maybe a lot.

The the Hokage and their Tower, as an office and institution, lack the power to enslave a Leaf Nin. Now they can assign mandatory missions, iirc, but fairly certain that the tower still needs to pay out for mandatory missions. Moreover, Noburi is no clanless Leaf Nin. He is the heir apparent of a voting Clan. The institution of the Tower is limited in what it can compel from such a personage, and at the very least will be pressured by other voting Clans to offer fair renumeration for services levied.

Moving now, from institutions to individuals. We were on good terms with Naruto 15 chapters ago. As of now? We just saved the fucking universe.

Lastly, although FOOM might not be a clan secret Noburi's bloodline is.

The Tower learning of FOOM means that the survival of Noburi's bloodline is a long term strategic imperative for Leaf. The Leaf Clan that has ownership over this as a clan secret is, of course, the Gōketsu. The clan head of the Gōketsu, is, of course, Hazō.

These factors combined give us a fair bit of leverage. At least enough for the relatively reasonable ask of "payment in kind". Let's hand over our fucking FOOM notes and have Noburi provide services to the Naruto in exchange for whatever amount of Chakra we need for our own training. We'll bribe Noburi with shinies, and the approval of an elder brother.

---

Problem 2 for both Stay and Leave, along with problems 3, 4, and 5 for Leave can all be solved by some combination of.

Esoteric seals, Explosions, Armageddon Inniative: MAD/Deadman's Switch Edition, and mind alerting affects.

I mean what's Itachi gonna do if we locked away memories of our spacial seal research using memory locking seals or something?

---

Now let's say we do go missing....

Leaf, the rest of the Hidden Villages (and by extension the Akatsuki) aren't gonna want to risk forcing our hand if even a single living Gōketsu nin could feasibly mean that each (and possibly every) Hidden Village will have to live with a Sword of Damocles hanging above their head for a generation.

If we go Leave and suffer a TPK that's a loss condition for us. If we Leavd and suffer a TPK (sans Kagome) that's a loss condition for the entire EN. Best of all, everyone who's anyone would know it too.

---

[X][MissingWhen] I want to go missing but not until certain things have happened

[x][OrochimaruProcess] Do not have Orochimaru do the bioseal process that will break Hidan's current tracking lock on Hazō

We absolutely cannot depend on or trust Oro at this most critical and sensitive juncture. Yet we NEED a way to block or spoof the blood tracking at the very least. Ideally someway to boost mobility even more somehow.

A credible MAD Dead Man's Switch would be great too. It could also be a PR victory tbh. Leave a note behind saying "look we don't trust the Akatsuki to enforce the peace, we're leaving Leaf so that if the worst comes to pass someone will live to embody the vengeful wrath of the will of fire".

Hell, copy the message over a few thousand times, strap em to a bunch of HOWS, and air drop propaganda on outlying towns and villages across the EN.

If we Leave we're certainly going to face esoteric and out of context threats. We need at LEAST 1 or 2 new esoteric and out of context tricks that even our alies haven't seen before.

EDIT: Forgive me if im repeating somone elses idea. Yet it occured to me that one particular runic array could probably be used as a functional WMD, and a weapon specifically designed to hard counter traditional sealmasters, potentially able to kill a good half of the Akatsuki. We have our MARS seals. We have runes. We know that Konan can trigger seals at range. Surely we could make a rune that just, idk, triggers all seals within a quarter mile radius or something?
 
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18scsc said:
Lastly, although FOOM might not be a clan secret Noburi's bloodline is.

The Tower learning of FOOM means that the survival of Noburi's bloodline is a long term strategic imperative for Leaf. The Leaf Clan that has ownership over this as a clan secret is, of course, the Gōketsu. The clan head of the Gōketsu, is, of course, Hazō.
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Note that a Bloodline Limit cannot be a secret; that's a category error. Secrets are pieces of information, e.g. "the Vampiric Dew can drain chakra through mist rather than just water" or "this is how you use shadows to hold someone in place". Clan secrets, furthermore, are pieces of information that are known only within the clan. Noburi's ability to transfer chakra is known to every single ninja in Leaf, as well as any civilian with sufficient interest in ninja affairs (the Zoo Rush made sure of that). Many other details also no longer qualify as clan secrets (e.g. the hospital staff know how precisely he can control his chakra drain; ninja who have bought top-ups know that he can put variable amounts of chakra into the same amount of chakra water).

Also, this is apropos of nothing in particular, but you should know that this is what I see whenever I look at your avatar:

 
Velorien said:
Note that a Bloodline Limit cannot be a secret; that's a category error. Secrets are pieces of information, e.g. "the Vampiric Dew can drain chakra through mist rather than just water" or "this is how you use shadows to hold someone in place". Clan secrets, furthermore, are pieces of information that are known only within the clan. Noburi's ability to transfer chakra is known to every single ninja in Leaf, as well as any civilian with sufficient interest in ninja affairs (the Zoo Rush made sure of that). Many other details also no longer qualify as clan secrets (e.g. the hospital staff know how precisely he can control his chakra drain; ninja who have bought top-ups know that he can put variable amounts of chakra into the same amount of chakra water).

Also, this is apropos of nothing in particular, but you should know that this is what I see whenever I look at your avatar:

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My apologies for imprecision. But aren't things like how his barrel are constructed and maintained a Gōketsu clan secret? Under Leaf law of course not Mist haha.
 
18scsc said:
It is disheartening to see so many of the long time players fall into some degree of... I'm not sure what to call it.... accelerationist ennui?
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Can you elaborate a little on what you actually mean here? Your post doesn't actually specify who you're addressing or what you think this is and I doubt you're addressing literally all long-time players.
 
18scsc said:
I mean what's Itachi gonna do if we locked away memories of our spacial seal research using memory locking seals or something?
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Likely impossible without some hax we don't have. Memory stuff is the domain of specialized genjutsu and Yamanaka Clan Secrets. Since Hazou doesn't know either one, he would be unable to figure out how to turn them into a seal.


18scsc said:
EDIT: Forgive me if im repeating somone elses idea. Yet it occured to me that one particular runic array could probably be used as a functional WMD, and a weapon specifically designed to hard counter traditional sealmasters, potentially able to kill a good half of the Akatsuki. We have our MARS seals. We have runes. We know that Konan can trigger seals at range. Surely we could make a rune that just, idk, triggers all seals within a quarter mile radius or something?
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This has come up before, I think it's worth pursuing. We have an enourmous backlog of seals/runes though.

I want to want to do serious Rune Research until we're softcapped on it. Since doing it at a higher level means faster progress.

Unless it's something like HTC chain runes. The value in finishing those first is really damn high.
 
_The_Bomb said:
@faflec has this always been the case with Clan Secrets?
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eaglejarl said:
  1. Just as every individual has secret techniques, every clan has secret techniques and secret knowledge. The first rule of clan secrets is that you don't talk about clan secrets. This is literally codified in village law, and if the Hokage attempted to ferret out clan secrets it would almost certainly lead to (at best) that clan leaving Leaf or (at worst) civil war. In general, clans do not reveal their secret techniques even to their own members until said members are old enough to keep them secret.
  2. "We can drain through mist" is a secret technique of the Wakahisa clan. The fact that Noburi shared it with you is an example of his incredible trust in you. (As well as his ego, but that's another story.)
  3. You were never taught the secret techniques of the Kurosawa clan because you were forced to go missing before you were old enough. To say that differently: clan secrets are so important that even after 'divorcing' her clan Hana did not immediately teach those secrets to you. You can only speculate on why she wasn't killed when she was thrown out -- probably it had something to do with personal affection and something to do with the rule shared by all ninja villages that "ninja from our village don't kill ninja from our village."
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Does this answer your question?
 
18scsc said:
It is disheartening to see so many of the long time players fall into some degree of... I'm not sure what to call it.... accelerationist ennui?
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While I thank you for the perspective, and I do not mean this to chide or scold you for wanting a third option... you weren't here for all the months of discussion leading up to this, the exhaustive attempts to find a way out on our own, a way we could make this work without drastic measures. This is more than an impassioned decision, getting into a strange mood and lashing out at the story in frustration or anything. This is a sober, somber decision we've arrived at after filling up blackboard after blackboard with scribbled ideas and hopes and trying to find the routes to success from within this mess we've found ourselves in.

I mean, this isn't to say that I must be correct about going missing being our only realistic option to achieve our goals, but this is very much not accelerationist ennui. I'm not doing this because I'm sick of where we are and want to push things along faster even if we're not ready for them, and I'm not doing this because I'm sick of where we are and want to move the story to a more interesting setting. Frankly I'd be very happy to get to stay in Leaf doing research at our own pace, finding a way to juggle stagnancy for interesting plotlines while keeping everything we've obtained along the way and watching Leaf grow in strength with us.

To me, this is us flipping things on their head even in the most dire of circumstances. Think about it, Itachi freaking Uchiha knows who we are and considers us a threat to his goals, and he has the entire rest of the Akatsuki at his back. By rights that should be the end of it. We just don't have the power to defy him. Leaf just doesn't have the power to defy him. So we turn the situation on its head, we take a drastic action and remove his ability to control us, and bring ourselves back into the running no matter the cost.

I don't like that it had to come to this. I don't like that it means we have to leave Leaf behind. But I refuse to give up on this world and it really really looks like that means we have to go missing, or else Itachi freaking Uchiha will make sure we stay marginalized and harmless while Akatsuki marches towards its own win condition.

I'd be ecstatic to find another way, all the rewards without so much of a cost. But even now the alternatives I see largely coalesce around "abandon the necromancy race, give up on Jiraiya and Akane, and focus on gaining power through other means". Sure, we can "win" without them, if we grow strong enough and unify the world under our banner regardless. But that's not a true solution, to me, it's a consolation prize. We lost Jiraiya of the Sannin, and the love of our life, and even if I was willing to roll the dice on Pain not ruining the world faster than we can become unstoppable I'm not willing to do that while also consigning them to true eternal death. Not when we can still save them.
 
18scsc said:
My apologies for imprecision. But aren't things like how [Noburi's] barrel are constructed and maintained a Gōketsu clan secret? Under Leaf law of course not Mist haha.
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Yes, they are.

Sir Stompy said:
Have they arrived in Toad yet? Are they due to arrive soon? I'd like to meet with the Toad Sages in the next 1-2 days IC, and I want to know if that's possible.
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Yes, they have arrived.

Shrooms said:
Speaking of which can we assume Naruto already gave us the fancy shmancy seal he promised and we just don't have specs yet?
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Yes, he did. We'll figure something out but suggestions are welcome. If anyone wants to put together a desired function + mechanics, that would be very helpful. If not, we'll figure it out probably over the weekend.
 
Sir Stompy said:
Yes, I agree that this is open to interpretation. I was asking in the sense of, since you feel the setting is winnable, what are your win conditions? Not a hypothetical person's. Do you think we can beat Akatsuki? Or are you content to settle for less?
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I would need to think it through to be sure I'm not missing anything, but offhand I would consider a win condition to be something like:
  • 95+% of the known world has been Uplifted. (This includes rendering their local ecology generally safe)
  • At least the following characters are alive and generally happy/healthy, including in no particular order:
    • Hazō, Mari, Kei, Noburi, Akane, Kagome
    • Ino, Yuno
    • Honoka, Honoka's parents, Akane's parents
    • Shikamaru
    • Jiraiya, Tsunade
    • Cannai, the Toad Sages, Cantelabra, Canabisu
    • Mareo (wandering wits must be cured)
    • Aburame Manjiro
    • Probably others that I'm not thinking of offhand
    • (There are some nice-to-haves, like Asuma, Hiashi, etc)
  • Hazō has developed a jōnin aura (this requires having jōnin stats)
  • Relations between the various nations are peaceful and stable
  • There are no apocalypses on the horizon. At a minimum, this requires:
    • Rendering the Great Seal safe
    • Preventing the return of more Dragons and dealing with any who have returned [NB: this may or may not have already been done]
    • Akatsuki is neutralized as a threat. This means that all of them (most especially Hidan) are dead, reliably contained, or have been converted to Hazō's way of thinking
  • The above would be sufficient for a minimal win, but to make it complete I would also want:
    • The afterlife rift is permanently open or can be opened more or less at will
    • Recently-deceased people can be recovered from the afterlife with only a reasonable amount of effort
 
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Chapter 7β: Surviving the Detonation
  • Sidestory
    • Chapter 7β: Surviving the Detonation​

    Hazō felt the slap that attached certain death to his back, and a whisper came in his ear: "Be still or you explode."

    Hazō was still.

    "Drop your weapons," Kagome-sensei said. After all these months, hearing his raspy, slightly high-pitched voice, just as it had been before practice speaking with other human beings smoothed it out, set Hazō's heart at peace even as he remained in mortal danger.

    Very carefully, Hazō removed the kunai holster from his belt and let it fall. His shuriken pouch and ninja wire followed.

    "The last pouch is a pair of sealing scrolls," he said. "One's for you, so I'd really rather lower them down carefully."

    A bight of rope slapped over his shoulder, both ends pre-tied in wide loops.

    "Right wrist to left ankle, around the tree," Kagome-sensei said.

    Hazō licked his lips. Even with the loops fully tightened, the rope was only about twenty centimetres long; this was not going to be the most comfortable conversation. Still, he'd pulled it off once before, with much less information, and he had a vague sense of what conversational beats to aim for.

    "Who are you?" Kagome-sensei demanded. "When are you from?"

    "My name is Kurosawa Hazō," Hazō said evenly. "I'm originally from Hidden Mist, but I went–"

    He felt the sharp sensation of a kunai tip pressed to the back of his head. Primitive fight or flight, an instinct honed by missing-nin years yet to come, screeched at him, threatening to shut down his composure and ruin everything.

    His will was stronger. Just.

    "No playing games, you stinker!" Kagome-sensei barked. "When are you from? Answer me, or I'll blow you to smithereens!"

    "T-Ten Seventy-One AS," Hazō stammered." But how–"

    "I'm asking the questions here!" Kagome-sensei snapped. "You think I didn't see how you walked around the splinterclaw nest? How you took out the eyestealer before it so much as saw you? I've lived in this forest longer than that body of yours has been alive; you think I don't know what it means when some kid I've never seen before walks through this forest like he's taking a stinking stroll? You've done this before!"

    The kunai pressed harder. Hazō winced.

    "You've got me, sir," he admitted. "I'm a time traveller."

    "I knew it!" Kagome-sensei crowed. "Here to put an end to me before I can foil your evil plans, are you? Silence me before I spread the truth? I knew this day would come, you–"

    "No!" Hazō exclaimed as the kunai began to dig too deep and the back of his neck turned wet. "I'm here because I need your help!"

    "Hmph! A likely story. You just want to get me off guard so your little friends out there can–"

    "Gyah!" Hazō let out an involuntary yelp. "Kagome-sensei, please!"

    Suddenly, he felt the kunai withdraw.

    "What did you just call me?"

    "Kagome-sensei," Hazō said more slowly. "Kagome-sensei, you're my master, my sealing instructor. You taught me everything I know."

    Kagome-sensei was silent for a while.

    "Are you saying that's why you're here? That I invented a time travel seal and sent you back in time to save the world?"

    Hazō relaxed, just a little.

    "Not exactly. I was attacked by a sealed horror and deliberately triggered a sealing failure. It threw me back into the past, to a few months ago."

    His missing-nin senses flared as he heard Kagome-sensei jump back.

    "Wait!" he screamed.

    Kagome-sensei hesitated. Hazō could feel the detonation syllable on his lips.

    "No student of mine would ever be that dumb," Kagome-sensei spat. "I knew you were just lying to catch me off guard so you could stab me in the back and take me away so you could peel my brain open like an orange and pull out all the secrets I know while you laughed at how gullible I was! 'Kagome-sensei!' As if I'd ever fall for that!"

    "I had no choice!" Hazō insisted urgently. "It had got loose on the Seventh Path and there was nobody else who could stop it and it was killing my siblings and I was afraid that if I didn't act that second it would be the end of the world!"

    "Hmph," Kagome-sensei snorted, but Hazō continued not to be spread in a million pieces across the forest.

    "I admit it," Hazō said. "It was dumb. And given what happened, maybe letting it kill everyone would have been the lesser evil."

    Maybe the Conclave could have defeated the Mori horror. Even if it couldn't, it was hard (though not impossible) to imagine that its rampage would have been worse than the literal apocalypse he'd ended up triggering. The weight of being responsible for the destruction of the Seventh Path and everyone in it was impossible for Hazō to process. It was like there simply wasn't enough room in his mind to contain an object that big.

    And that was before considering the possibility that his time travel had erased the alpha timeline, destroying an entire universe.

    "It was dumb," Hazō said again. "But Kagome-sensei–"

    "Stop calling me that!"

    Thinking about the apocalypse he'd caused didn't hurt, at least not yet, but that did. Like having a layer of flesh stripped off his heart.

    "...But you were right… about one thing," Hazō choked out. "The world… does need saving. There's a lot of suffering in the future. A lot of death. I can prevent it. But I need help."

    "Even if you're not lying through your teeth," Kagome-sensei said after a few seconds' pause, "what business of mine is that? What's the world ever done for old Kagome, huh? Why should I go out there and get stabbed and sliced and blown up and kidnapped and forced to sit in a dungeon somewhere making seals for the Men in Coloured Cloaks for the rest of my life?"

    "There's plenty of danger in the future," Hazō said. "I can't lie to you about that. I've never seen a seal workshop myself, but I have been in a lot of fights, and some of them were very close calls. Many times, it was seals we'd researched together that made the difference."

    "Researched… together?"

    Kagome-sensei's voice was a tiny bit slow, a tiny bit stumbling, like he was enunciating a dangerous new piece of sealing terminology to make sure he had it right.

    "I can't promise you that this future will be like the future I came from. In fact, it's my goal to make sure it isn't. But the Kagome-sensei I knew in 1071… he was a respected sealing instructor in the world's greatest village. Not a single one of his apprentices died. Everyone took him seriously, and sometimes he gave lectures at the Academy and all the children listened and took notes."

    "Lectures at the Academy, huh?" Kagome-sensei repeated thoughtfully. "'Pay attention, class: today we'll be doing theory of explosives with Kagome-sensei. Thank you for taking time out of your very important research for us, Kagome-sensei. No, it's nothing. Can't have the little brats blowing themselves up because they think explosions and implosions are the same thing. You there at the back, shut your gob. You want to be the stinking idiot lying in the rubble with your bones ground to powder and half your skull missing because you didn't listen in class that one time?"

    Hazō began to relax as Kagome-sensei mumbled to himself, gradually getting lost in fantasies that, for once, were not paranoid at all.

    -o-​

    It was dark by the time Kagome-sensei (please let him still be "Kagome-sensei") had finished collecting his gear, erasing every sign of his fifteen years of habitation and clearing out the lairs of the chakra beasts most likely to eat villagers who came too close to the edge of the forest ("Some of their offerings weren't that awful, and I had some explosives that needed using up anyway, and will you stop looking at me like that?!").

    In accordance with the protocol for Operation Future Perfect, Phase III, the rest of the team were arranged on logs around a warm, crackling campfire, with weapons stored securely out of sight, and a bubbling pot of stew clearly visible in the middle of the formation. Extra-pungent spices would make sure the smell hit the hungry hermit before he had too much time to second-guess his decision. Mari was just in the process of sampling the stew (which wasn't part of the plan, and should have been the cook's job anyway, but she'd just claim social spec ad-lib if he called her on it).

    The team gave Kagome-sensei a few seconds to soak in the relaxed atmosphere and display of casual camaraderie before they rose one by one, slowly, to greet him.

    "You must be Kagome," Kei said, giving a very proper and not at all anxious bow (on reflection, maybe he should have downplayed the "paranoid survivalist with pockets full of armed explosives" angle during the briefing). "It is a pleasure to meet you, sir. I am Mori Keiko, the team's logistics specialist."

    Kagome barely took in the diminutive thirteen-year-old girl, his attention thoroughly captured by the diminutive twenty-mumble woman who'd naturally positioned herself so her hair practically glowed in the firelight while her posture as she leaned over the pot emphasised her bust.

    "Thank you for coming out to meet us," Mari said smoothly, skipping Noburi's turn. "I appreciate that it must have taken a great deal of trust, and I'd like you to know how grateful I am for it. My name is Inoue Mari. As I'm sure you've heard, I'm a jōnin infiltration specialist with a sideline in taijutsu and genjutsu."

    Kagome-sensei stiffened, but did not pull his hands out of his pockets, which would have been a sign to dive for cover. Hazō had had the basic degree of common sense necessary to warn him and then weather several rounds of paranoid ranting while Hazō emphasised Mari's loyalty to the team and how he knew from the alpha timeline that she would never dream of using her abilities on Kagome-sensei.

    "Would you like to join us for some mysterious-but-surprisingly-palatable-rodent stew?" Mari asked.

    Kagome-sensei took a reluctant step closer.

    "Let's not overlook the team's MVP," Noburi said, rising with an easy grin. "I'm Wakahisa Noburi, ninjutsu master in training. We've already got plenty of cute girls and Kurosawa, so it'll be good to have another man on board."

    Hazō couldn't shake the feeling that he'd just been insulted somehow, but try as he might, he couldn't put his finger on it. So this was the genesis of the elusive wit that would one day lay waste to Hyuuga Neji's ego.

    "Cute girl, was it, Noburi?"

    Noburi's bravado wavered as he found that his words had consequences; Akane beamed at him while Kei looked away uneasily and Mari gave him a flirtatious wink. Then Akane turned the full force of her solar smile on Kagome-sensei.

    "Ishihara Akane, sir. It's wonderful to meet you. Kurosawa"–Hazō didn't flinch anymore–"says you're an incredible trapmaster. I'm a dabbler myself, and I really hope you'll find the time to show me how a professional does it."

    Kagome-sensei's wary expression softened just a tiny bit.

    "So," he asked, "are the rest of you time travellers too?"

    For a second, Hazō wished Mari were a seal (the paper kind, not the ship-devouring kind) so he could burn her expression of utter, all-consuming bewilderment into his memory forever.

    And that was why Phase III was when he drew a line under the deception. There was no possible way to keep time travel from Mari if Kagome-sensei knew, and not telling the trust-starved Kagome-sensei was the kind of omission that risked splitting the team when the truth came out.

    "Time travellers?" Mari clarified, only semi-successfully keeping her incredulity out of her voice.

    "About that," Hazō said. "Inoue, I have something to tell you."

    "Nope," Mari said. Hazō could see her give up on smooth-talking as it dawned on her that nobody else was acting surprised even though this hadn't been part of the mission briefing. "Nuh-uh. Time travel is impossible. It's so impossible it's been legally declared impossible. You get executed if you're caught researching it in Mist."

    "Wait, seriously?" Hazō asked.

    "Actually, I can confirm this," Kei said. "It was a law passed due to my clan's advocacy, notable for being the only law with no recorded originator. The Mori set bounties for identifying and correcting such errors in the archives, a task typically undertaken by Academy students and unsuccessful genin in need of additional income."

    Kagome-sensei snorted. "Of course time travel is possible. Where do you think chrono-reavers come from?"

    Chrono-reavers?

    "Inoue-sensei," Akane said, "I know it sounds implausible, but Kurosawa's proved it to every one of us. He knows things from my past that nobody outside my family has any way of knowing, and he's never even been to Leaf!"

    "Every one of us, huh?" Mari's expression cooled.

    "Oh."

    This was the part that had worried Hazō most, even more than surviving Kagome-sensei's suspiciousness. He'd have preferred to do it more subtly, more delicately, and ideally not on the very first night when a team conflict might scare Kagome-sensei off for good. Still, he didn't have it in him to be angry with Akane for trying to help.

    "Inoue," he began, "the problem I've been struggling with is that I know a lot about all the others because in the future–my past–they told me all sorts of obscure or private things. But everything I know about you is either known to someone, especially the secret police–like what happened with your uncle–or is feelings stuff I could conceivably figure out with social skills."

    "I see," Mari said. "And that's why you decided to keep me, and just me, in the dark–because you couldn't logic me into believing you the way you did the kids."

    Hazō could see Kagome-sensei tensing next to him, having been caught in the middle of–having triggered–a confrontation he wanted no part of. A confrontation he could so easily get away from. The team was balancing on the knife edge of disaster, maybe even the knife edge of no longer being a team.

    Kurosawa Hazō the time-travelling mastermind couldn't fix this. No, Kurosawa Hazō the time-travelling mastermind had been a mistake from the start. His resolution to be his true self with his family from the start had been good and right, and while it had led to some bumps in the road– it was Noburi that Akane called by first name now, not him–he knew in his heart that it was the right way forward when there was no way back. He should never have betrayed that conviction out of fear. No, Kurosawa Hazō the time-travelling mastermind couldn't fix this. But maybe Gōketsu Hazō could.

    Hazō bowed deeper than a captain should ever bow to a second-in-command.

    "You're right, Inoue. Mari. I'm so sorry."

    All Hazō could see from his bent-over position was the light from the dancing fire. His next few words would decide if it was going to warm him or consume him.

    "I should have treated you like an adult from the start. Sure, I was scared of what you might choose to do once you knew, but if I wanted to earn your trust–if I wanted to deserve your trust–I should never have taken the choice from you."

    "What I might choose to do?" Mari repeated. "What did you think I was going to do?"

    Hazō straightened up.

    "In the future I come from, Inoue Mari is precious to me. All of you are. Mari, you're someone who I've trusted with my own life and the lives of my family. I knew exactly how terrifyingly dangerous you are, and I sat on the pier with bare feet because I also knew that that danger only existed for our enemies. During our journey together, we both learned that you have as much love in you as you do ferocity."

    Mari listened, expressionless. The others, even Akane, were frozen as if scared to move.

    "The thing is, I was there for that entire journey. I know when and how you shattered the chains of the cold, dark part of yourself we called the Heartbreaker. I know how much effort it took. And I know that this time round, I've messed it up for you."

    "I… don't understand."

    "As best I know," Hazō said, "your journey started when you found yourself in Hidden Swamp with Shikigami-sensei and Kanna-sensei, and all of a sudden there were all those ninja–many of them as young as us–who needed help only you could give: not as a killer but as a mistress of the human heart."

    The phrasing was essential. He'd already walked too close to the line during Phase I. If the others realised that Mari had chosen them for Hidden Swamp, it would be an explosive tag–no, it would be an implosion seal to their relationships. Noburi didn't yet have the gains that outweighed his losses. Kei… Kei's journey from revelation to reconciliation had taken years of pain and disaster and personal growth, and much of it had happened without Hazō so he couldn't even apply his future knowledge to help her.

    "You supported all of us, I think, in little ways or big ones. You're the reason Hidden Swamp had morale, for all of Shikigami-sensei's inspirational speeches. But the central pillar, the one that truly changed you… was Mori Keiko."

    "Me?!" Kei exclaimed, staring at him as if he'd grown nine tails.

    "Yeah. Not to put too fine a point on it, but alpha Kei was borderline suicidal. She'd lost her clan, she'd lost her home, she'd lost her sensei, she'd lost her future, and above all, she'd lost her sister. I can't speak for the details of her mindset because we weren't remotely close at that time, but I don't think she felt she had anything left to live for."

    Kei nodded, no longer looking sceptical, and wasn't that the worst thing of all?

    "Mari saved her," Hazō said. "I don't know the details. Genjutsu was involved, I think, but more than that. Everything Mari had to throw at the problem, she threw. After that… Kei was still in a bad place for a long time, but she was alive, and eventually things got better.

    "The bond that came from that was life-changing for both of them. The reason alpha Mari saved us oblivious genin from the Swamp of Death wasn't because somebody persuaded her. It was purely because we ran into her while she was busy faking her death, and Kei was with us.

    "Obviously, none of that has happened anymore."

    Mari and Kei were staring at each other, but neither had anything to say. Then both looked back at him as it began to dawn on one how much he'd saved her and the other how much he'd cost her.

    "So yeah," Hazō said. "I messed up. And it left me afraid. What if I'd ruined your redemption and left myself with the Heartbreaker? What if I gave the Heartbreaker, somebody I couldn't possibly fight, the power that comes with knowing the future, and she decided to abuse it?"

    He breathed in and out, slowly.

    "I am so sorry, Mari. I used you when I should have trusted you. Trust means taking risks. It means the possibility of being betrayed. I chose to take that risk when I decided I wanted you to be my family again, and I should have followed through."

    Silence, but for the crackling of the fire.

    Mari sat down heavily. The others did the same, as if taking it for permission (except Kagome-sensei, still stuck on this side of the fire with Hazō, and seemingly afraid to breathe).

    "Fuck," Mari finally said, with feeling. Kagome-sensei flinched.

    "Fuck," Mari repeated after a second. "How the hell am I supposed to process all of that?"

    "Sorry," Hazō muttered.

    "Oh, pipe down." Mari sighed. "If there's one thing I got from all of that, it's that behind all the smug puppetmasteriness, you're just as scared and screwed up as the rest of us. And honestly, that's a massive relief.

    "Now, I don't know, and for the rest of the night I don't care, whether you're from the future, from the past, or just plain crazy. Wakahisa, grab me the biggest bowl. Mori, you're on ladling duty. Kagome, pull up a log. Hazō says you're a master chef, and there's something not quite right with this stew."
     
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  • Sidestory
    • [X] Action Plan: Fuck It We Ball
    Word Count: <499
    • Ask Mari to wait for a few hours; we need to talk to Cannai before we discuss things further.
    • Cannai:
      • Do this ASAP, very privately
        • Ask him for an oath of secrecy first.
      • Explain the background:
        • Akatsuki is attempting to reopen a rift to the (human?) afterlife.
        • They've threatened to murder us if we interfere
        • They plan to resurrect their leader, Pain.
        • Pain planned a world-altering ritual in the name of peace, leading to the BotG and Kakashi's death (among others).
          • Our current understanding is that the ritual would alter human nature and forcibly link all humanity.
        • While this ritual may be irreplicable (missing bijuu), we're worried that Pain'll attempt another disastrous ritual
          • While his aims sound admirable, he chose to empower and defend monsters like Hidan and Sasori. We can't trust his judgement.
      • We don't think we can safely stop Akatsuki while in Leaf; they know where we are. They are prepared to interrogate and kill Hazou on a whim. He can't expect to deceive them
      • The only path forward Hazou can see is to go missing or accept Pain's victory.
        • Ask him what he would do if he was in our situation.
      • If we do this, will you support us? Specifically:
        • Provide shelter on the Seventh Path while we research the Rift - infusions will all be done on the Human Path.
        • Protect us from Akatsuki; specifically, Itachi and Kisame (and the Crows/Sharks).
          • Share an abbreviated description of them from Oro's dossier.
          • We have possible countermeasures - to Amaterasu specifically, but need time to research them
        • (Possibly) Provide and/or encourage tutors/Summons to assist with the above.
      • If Cannai's unconvinced or concerned with our loyalty to Leaf, tell him that Naruto suggested this and (unofficially) supports us.
        • If Akatsuki finds this out, they will destroy Leaf. The secret must be kept at all costs.
    • Mari: IFF Cannai supported us.
      • Meet in absolute secrecy immediately afterwards.
      • You're right: with FOOM about to leak, we may have to leave now - no more TH training.
      • We planned to bring you, Nobui, Kagome, Kei, and Yuno. Should we bring all of them? Include others (like Tenten - probably unfeasible)?
        • But we're worried about how people will do emotionally, after abandoning their friends and everything they've built.
      • What's the best way to get us all out?
        • There's an important bit of information we left out earlier, Naruto knows we might be planning to go missing. He suggested it himself.
          • Tell her about that meeting, including the mixed messages Naruto was sending.
        • Go together on a scroll hunt?
        • Leave separately (so Hazou can finish TH training?), with one group going "missing" on a scroll hunt and Hazou searching for them?
        • Something else?
      • Are we missing anything? What should we set up before we leave?
        • Who should we leave in charge? Atomu? Haru? Reo?
      • What should we tell Kei & Yuno about their mission tomorrow?
    • Misc:
      • Ask if Mareo can teach us TH.
      • Follow Mari's advice about what to say to Kei & Yuno.
    _______________
     
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