Alas, I don't think we get to go back to Leaf until the job is done. Naruto's cover relies on Hazou going full "yeah buh-bye" into the woods and keeping only the most minimal amount of contact with Naruto, so returning and departing again would probably throw a wrench into that whole thing.
Moreover, we didn't swap out our blood. Hidan would instantly detect us the moment he shows up to ask Naruto where we are. Leaf is simply one of the least safe places for us right now.
If we wanted this to work, I'd say we would have to 1) go get Orochimaru to change our blood out, and 2) sneak under Leaf without Naruto knowing. The latter is more risky than the former, imo, because Leaf emphatically does not want to be caught off-guard by underground assailants like they did last time in the Collapse, but even the former is a hard sell for most of the hivemind unless we have no other choice.
Ah I'd forgotten about the Hidan blood tracking. That scuppers this.
RE point 2, I forgot to include it in the post but I wasn't thinking we'd actually do any sneaking/tunnelling back into Leaf. We'd be sitting in our bunker before our departure, and it would be the clone that "left" for the mission. It'd break contact and dispell and then we'd be set in our bunner.
There would be some logistics to figure out, but regardless, it's a non-starter while Hidan can trace our location. We'll just have to hope for the best re: human path safety precautions while we're in the wild.
"Greetings, obstreperous brat. Are you finally coming to pay your proper respects to me, or will I need to beat some sense into your sorry hindquarters?"
The disorientation and fading pain of reverse summoning had Hazō spinning until he found Cannai. The Alpha of the Dog Clan was sitting on his haunches, comfortably twice Hazō's height, and glaring at the summoner.
Hazō apparently didn't find words quickly enough, because Cannai's tongue quickly lolled back out. "I sense no respect coming from you, summoner. Was my impression of the Toad Sages inadequate, or are you treating them similarly disrespectfully?"
Hazō shook his head. "It was a fine impression, Cannai. But they normally put some oomph into their lines, instead of delivering it deadpan."
"Well, perhaps I must go ask them to teach me and hope they don't beat their lessons into my sorry hindquarters," Cannai said, panting in amusement. "By your lack of major injury, I presume your jutsu modification lessons are progressing nicely?"
"Well enough," Hazō sighed. "They're not as nice as my old teacher, but they're clearly far more knowledgeable. I don't know if that's a good thing though – they're worse at communicating the basic concepts, I think. Also, their technique hacking tradition is completely different from the one I was learning, so it's really hard trying to learn all the new abstractions and models they're using. At least some of the stuff I learned carries over, like sensing my own chakra system. Honestly, given how different humans' and summons' chakra is, I don't think any other summon could teach me technique hacking. Those two have the advantage of centuries working with humans."
"Old and learned as they may be, I still found their attitude rather poor," Cannai said, raising his nose. "One would expect such ancient beings to have self-respect instead of just pride, yet they are still cantankerous and rude."
"That they are," Hazō said. "But they're still good teachers."
"Oh? Everything you described didn't sound very complimentary."
"I was just griping!" Hazō complained. "They're not very forgiving of mistakes, and they brutally mock me whenever I forget an instruction, but they're razor sharp at actually catching those mistakes, and they have a dozen tricks to break me out of any rut I get stuck in."
"Hm," Cannai said. "Well, they are providing their knowledge to my clan's summoner free of charge, so I ought to show restraint and refrain from foul-mouthing them further."
"Probably for the better. How have matters been in Dog, lately?"
"Easy," Cannai said. "A few have complained about the lack of access to the various traded goods from Pangolin, but in truth there were only ever a few who depended on the Conclave's trades in the first place. The challenge we face is not in Dog, but in Hyena."
"What is the situation there?" Hazō said. "I heard the peace was holding, which is kind of a surprise given how aggressive the Pangolins have been in the past."
"Peace is not static, summoner. It is always dynamic. The peace is holding because the Pangolins are repeatedly relocating their troops to try to gain a strategic advantage, and we constantly adjust our defense to prevent them from finding an opportunity for a decisive victory. No fighting has yet begun, no blood drawn, but this is a situation maintained by our active effort. Or so Haikari tells me – my senses obviously do not extend so far as the eastern border of Hyena."
"I see. Haikari is the new leader of Hyena?"
"Indeed she is. Haiwarai was a leader who rose in a time of peace, for peace. Haikari is a blooded warrior. Despite being new to the mantle, in some ways I expect she will be better equipped to defend Hyena's land. That her reign is starting with a much-needed alliance with Dog is also an asset to us – already, we are more friendly than Haiwarai and I ever were."
"And the hyenas are treating our clan's warriors well?"
"To an extent," Cannai said, settling down but keeping his head perked up to be comfortably at Hazō's eye level. "Our warriors were killing their warriors and vice-versa in living memory. It is a hard thing to forget that the hyena by your side may have tasted your brother's blood between his jaws. Cooperation comes slowly, but Haikari has granted some strategic oversight to our pack leaders, so they will hopefully not be blindly given the most lethal assignments out of selfishness. Still, it is an unsure thing. I know that every one of them left Dog willingly, yet I still regret that many of them will never return."
"I'm sorry," Hazō said.
Cannai cocked his head. "Perhaps you are right to be sorry, given that this is ultimately caused by your invention prompting the Pangolins towards conquest. However, at this point, it cannot be stopped. Hyena will fight to recover the lands they lost, and Pangolin will not settle for keeping what they have stolen – they must expand. If you wished to help, I am certain your aid would be welcome on the front lines. Your combat power is irrelevant in this phase of war making, because merely being able to scout and pass messages instantly between points on the front would be a decisive factor in Hyena's favor. Yet, I am aware you have better things to do with your time."
Hazō shook his head. "Akatsuki is on the cusp of bringing Pain back. I don't know how many months we have until that happens, but if it happens, the whole Human Path could be lost. I just can't afford to spend hours every day scouting on the Seventh Path. Speaking of which, my assignment's changed. The Hokage has taken charge of the situation and given me an actual order: to build weapons to kill Akatsuki."
"If I recall, this is done at no small risk to himself, correct?" Cannai asked. "If Akatsuki discovers that your packleader is actively opposing them rather than merely allowing you to do so by oversight, based on the scant impressions I have received from you, I do not think Akatsuki would take it kindly."
"That sounds right. Either way, I need to figure out a way to kill some of the strongest ninja in the Elemental Nations."
Cannai perked up.
"And my chakra reserves are still not large enough to summon you."
Cannai lowered his head back down.
"One of my ideas was to work with chakra itself. Since all their strength comes from their ability to use chakra, if I can somehow change, limit, or take away that ability, then killing them gets a lot easier. I wanted to ask you some questions about that."
"Ask away, summoner. I can only hope that I have answers to your questions."
"Well, how much do you know about the philosophy of chakra? What do you think chakra is, really?"
"Ah," Cannai said. "This is related to your conversation with old King Kamehameha, isn't it? I do believe… just about everyone on the Seventh Path's south coast would have overheard it, given the King's prodigious volume. I'm sure there were no small number of Clan Bosses who were appalled by the wonderful tales he fed you, and who would have been happy to disabuse you of said nonsense with nonsense of their own. I should be grateful that you came to me first.
"Relatedly, chakra is not the thoughts of kami, whatever that would mean. Chakra does not have will in the way that thoughts do – chakra does not do anything on its own. Instead, it is known that chakra is the lifeforce of the Sage of the Six Paths, gifted from him to his many children – from the human ninja to the various seventh Path Clans. Gifted once, it remains eternal. When a Dog dies, their soul is split. Their essence is reincarnated, their knowledge fades away, and their vitality, their chakra, returns to Dog, to the lands, the skies, and the waters."
"So chakra is just… the Sage's power?"
"What else would it be?" Cannai said. "Is the Human Path so far gone that you have forgotten that it was the Sage who created chakra?"
"No," Hazō said, "it's just that others have told me differently. So then what's the difference between human and nature chakra?"
"These are the types of chakra you spoke about with Kamehameha? Where the Turtle King was mistaken before, here he was merely nipping your tail. I do not believe he has any particular reason to believe there are precisely fourteen types of chakra – that would be absurd. As to what they are specifically? I do not know. Perhaps some of our bards would know more, but the terms are unfamiliar to me. I am of course well aware that humans and dogs use chakra quite differently."
"Then how about the elements? Nature chakra, the type of chakra that dogs use, has so many more elements than human chakra, which only has five. Why is that the case?"
Cannai stared at Hazō for a moment, then looked away, down the hillside. "I confess I haven't really thought about it, summoner. Why is the plain different than the mountain? Why does the river flow down, and the trees grow up? Such things do not require explanations. They just are."
Idyllic as it may be, a mindset like that wasn't going to help Hazō make Akatsuki-killing weaponry.
"Have you ever heard of a human using nature chakra? Maybe by learning to use an element that isn't one of the human five?"
"I do not believe I have. That human elements are so limited frequently frustrated Kakashi when he was attempting to learn the various jutsu the Dog Clan had to offer."
"Well, maybe that's reasonable. Jiraiya warned us that using nature chakra could be deadly to a human, and the Toad Sages let it slip that training to use it might turn you into a rock. Still, apparently they can train someone to use it and combine it with human chakra. Do the Dogs have any knowledge of this?"
"Unfortunately not, summoner."
"I see. One last question – I've heard before that chakra is like a hilly landscape, and that we regenerate chakra by 'walking up' the hill, then expend it by going back down, gaining power like a ball would when it rolls down a slope. Does that make sense?"
"It seems like an explanation, summoner. Is it one that has any grounding in reality? I do not know. I often find such explanations are ways of fooling ourselves into thinking we understand, rather than a way of gaining true understanding."
"Well, if that's the case, I think it might be possible to make a seal that evens out the 'landscape', making it hard to regenerate chakra, or impossible to expend it. If I could make it specific to only human chakra, then I could shut down humans in combat while letting my summons fight unimpeded. Do you think something like that could be possible?"
"You are the foremost expert in whether something can or cannot be achieved by sealcraft. As to whether it is possible to manipulate chakra to make jutsu easier or harder to cast…"
Cannai paused. He waited for a few seconds. "You may try to cast a jutsu, summoner."
Hazō raised an eyebrow. Had Cannai done something to the surrounding chakra? He palmed a Poor Man's Yellow Flash disk from his pocket and threw it, unsealing a small log a dozen feet away. Hazō focused for a moment, pulling the chakra in his coils together for a Substitution technique.
He swapped with the log.
"What did you feel, summoner?"
"It felt the same," Hazō said.
Cannai didn't answer for a few seconds longer. "Try once more."
Hazō substituted with the log again, bringing him back to Cannai's side.
"Still no difference," Hazō said with a faint feeling of disappointment.
"Hm. Well, perhaps there is something more subtle I must do to achieve the desired effect. Or perhaps it is not possible at all. Who can tell?
"Regardless," Cannai continued, "I first tried to pull all the chakra away from you. Second, I tried to condense the chakra around you to suffocate you in it. If neither of these did anything…" his tail thwapped side to side, "then I know not exactly what is required. If you can tell me more precisely what I should be doing, then I would be glad to aid you in whatever experiments you wish. Otherwise, I will have to defer to your superior wisdom as a sealmaster in how this should be achieved."
"Ah, that's a shame," Hazō said. "Still, thank you for trying."
"You are welcome, summoner. If that is the end of your questions for me, do you have other pressing business? Canabisu wishes to give you a 'general debrief' of his findings after two years in Arachnid. I understand it was quite stressful for him to spend so long away from his pack, surrounded by only alien creatures of such a different culture, and you are one of the few that was with him in this unusual travail. I believe he also has plans to 'rehabilitate' Cantelabra, who spent so much of his youth among spiders instead of a proper dog pack, with which he would like your assistance."
"I can stay for another ten minutes," Hazō said, mentally picking through his plans for the day. "But… I do have to get to Toad by dawn for my training."
"I see," Cannai said. "Well, perhaps you will be free this evening? The Gray Oak pack is holding a taleswap in memory of Canaut, and they have made a humble request for your presence."
Hazō winced. "Once the training is over, I have seals to research. Depending on its duration, maybe I could join after the research is finished? Assuming no complications, of course."
"It is fine, summoner. Go and be a dutiful student. Canabisu will understand that you do not want ill-mannered Toads ripping your limbs off, I'm sure. You do not need to push yourself to rush your research. The Gray Oak pack would be grateful for your presence on another day. Time does not matter to the dead; they can always wait."
o-o-o
Hazō sat in front of the rune blank, considering it.
It was going to be dangerous. Maybe. That was the worst part of it. He didn't know whether the rune would fizzle out harmlessly, or whether it would cause a catastrophe beyond even Kagome-sensei's worst imaginations.
Hazō had invented two runes so far. The explosive rune had been drop-dead simple, just like the explosive seal had been. Just poke a hole out of the prison the Sage had named chakra, command up as much energy as you can, then let it all blast free. The math, the theory, designing the components had all been easy. When it came time to infuse the rune, he had been sure beyond sure that he knew what it would do.
The Fast Forward Rune… had not been so simple. Pulling on the threads of time was no mean feat, and it had taken hours for Hazō to even begin to conceptualize how he might start doing that. Still, over the course of days of research, he'd managed it. When he'd infused the rune, he'd known for certain what would come of it. At least, as long as he didn't introduce the tiniest of errors while earthshaping the blank, and as long as he stayed in perfect control of his chakra while infusing.
Unfortunately, while the threads of time didn't object to Hazō's gentle touch, Hazō just couldn't figure out how to properly, fully bend them to his will. The rune he imagined himself needing was too complex, trying to spend too much power through too few conduits to be safe. He couldn't figure out exactly what he needed to compress time to an actually relevant level.
Or at least, he couldn't without experimentation. When researching seals, Hazō made prototypes. Lots of them in fact. Often, those prototypes tested tiny, trivial properties of individual components (something he could not frivolously do with his limited supply of runic substrate), but he also frequently took weeks to design major prototypes of critical functions of the final seal before he put it all together in the end.
The chakra wasn't fully bound in those prototypes. The exact specification of what each intermediary seal needed to do was left partially incomplete by their very nature. This caused tiny sealing failures, but not the dangerous kind. As long as he made every brushstroke correct and stayed in complete control of his chakra, there was no real risk to him.
Major sealing failures were dangerous but probably not world-ending (as long as Hazō discounted the most extreme of Kagome-sensei and Jiraiya's stories). Tiny sealing failures, on the other hand, were totally manageable. Hazō had no clue what a full runic failure would entail, but runes were more than seals in every way, and that probably included the size of the crater left behind by a failure. He didn't expect he would survive it if he ever caused one. But what was a tiny runic failure going to look like?
He'd played around with the plans for the prototype. He'd analyzed it from every angle he could, even developed new bits of theory to try to find a way to keep the runic chakra fully bound and to keep any undefined behavior from happening. He hadn't found it. If he wanted to make progress on the next iteration of the Fast Forward rune, he needed to infuse a prototype.
He was a shadow clone, of course. Prime was on a skytower, two miles out and a mile up, and would reverse summon at first notice. Kagome and Kei were both on the Seventh Path, and wouldn't return until Hazō gave them the all-clear. Plus, it wasn't going to be a full runic failure. Only a tiny part of the overall energy would be unbound and free to act randomly. They'd all live. Probably.
But why couldn't he shake the faint feeling that he teetered on the cusp of catastrophe?
He shook his head gently, smoothing out the ripples in his chakra control caused by his anxiety. He was only playing with time itself, not any particularly lethal force. They'd placed a collection of things beside the weaker Fast Forward rune, including moss, grass, lichens, and potted plants from Leaf. They'd even jarred some of the island gnats and caught some sea creatures (a fire-breathing turtle and a strange crab-scorpion thing whose claws dripped venom) to keep in a stone box by the rune. So far, nothing had shown any ill effects.
Slowly, calmly, he lifted his hand and placed it upon the rune. He hadn't even begun the infusion, yet his hand felt heavy, weighed down by the metaphysical gravity of what he was about to do.
He opened his mind, letting his soul slip sideways into that place where he understood. He knew what he needed to do. He laced his chakra into the rune, little by little. His list of infusion instructions was etched into his mind like iron, and he followed it step by agonizing step, taking the utmost care in every instant to never let his chakra slip from his grasp in the slightest.
Finally, he twisted his chakra into place, unlocking the raw power of the universe and forcing it, momentarily, to move according to the structure he had created. For a moment, he felt disembodied, like falling through a void in every direction at once, simultaneously motionless and about to impact solid stone.
The infusion had succeeded. Hazō backed away, finally releasing his control over his breath. He panted, wiping the sweat from his brow. The rune was humming again, a low susurration that he couldn't help but interpret as reality moaning as he twisted it into impossible shapes. The setting sun's golden light barely let him see the rune's glow, more blue than purple, as it sat upon the short granite pedestal he'd made for it.
Hazō pushed it experimentally. This rune also refused to move.
He sighed. There was only one thing to do now.
He reached out and fed his chakra into the rune. Energy built up in the rune, and built and built until suddenly the rune activated. Reality warped in a pulse from the rune as before, but something was different. From the center, Hazō couldn't tell, but the pulse was jagged instead of smooth, moving faster than it had the last time.
Hazō chain-substituted back as the runic hum turned into a squeal, into a shriek. He was just ducking behind cover when he saw the rune shatter.
He waited for several long, silent minutes before he poked his head out. The remnants of the rune were mostly contained on the pedestal, though a few shards seemed like they had fallen into the sand.
He started walking towards it. If he'd been Prime, he would have waited hours longer, observing from a distance with a telescope and leading his entry with a twelve-foot pole, but as MeatbagMinion189281, it was his duty to die in illustrative manners for Prime's sake.
He stopped a moment later. The island's gnats had frozen.
Surrounding the rune in every direction, the small, black bugs that came out to swarm at sundown had frozen dead in midair. He could still hear the faint sound of their buzzing. He turned and saw behind him, the gnats were still swarming. Only the ones within a few dozen yards of the rune had been caught in the effect.
Experimentally, he reached out to touch one. It resisted his touch at first, like he was trying to push a stone through honey. After a moment, it dropped into his palm. It still didn't move. He prodded at the sand within the area. It parted normally at his touch.
Why had gnats been affected, but he made it out okay? Was it because he was the one that infused the rune? Was it that he had chakra that resisted foreign effects, and the insects didn't have that protection?
Hazō looked at the hemisphere of frozen time he'd made, trapping tens of thousands of (admittedly insignificant) beings within its reach.
Runes were powerful, and researching them was going to cause far more trouble than he'd thought.
I skipped the following plan line:
Share what we learned from Orochimaru, does it match his experience as a Clan Boss?
As Hazō learned a lot from Orochimaru, this really doesn't pin anything down.
Day 1
Prep RRBs.
Prep CATEARS.
Prep Force Walls.
Prep Faster Forward Rune v1. Difficulty result: Hazō thinks this rune is well within his capabilities.
Day 2
Prep RRBs.
Prep CATEARS.
Prep Force Walls.
Prep Faster Forward Rune v2. Difficulty result: Hazō thinks this rune is well within his capabilities.
Below, all lines referencing "Faster Forward Rune" reference the V2.
Day 3
Prep RRBs.
Prep CATEARS.
Prep Force Walls.
Prep Anti-Substitution Seal. Difficulty result: Jiraiya
Day 4
Prep RRBs.
Prep CATEARS.
Prep Force Walls.
Prep Substitution-Triggered ARS. Difficulty result: Chūnin
Day 5
Prep RRBs.
Prep CATEARS.
Prep Air-Conditioning Seal. Difficulty result: Genin
Infuse Force Walls.
[NB: With rolls this bad, I would normally have Hazō reroll, but he did some prep, and he recently pumped Calligraphy, so he's still confident in his new score. No reroll.]
With great difficulty and an unknown distance to disaster, Hazō finishes the Force Wall seal! Tentative mechanics: Not viable in combat, grants the taggable Aspect "Invisible Cutting Edges" on Trapmaking checks with a minimum TN of 50, and can be used to make Weapons:3 traps.
Day 6
Prep RRBs.
Prep CATEARS.
Prep Force Claws. Difficulty result: Jōnin.
The Force Wall seal's effect is created and delineated by its paired seals. Without a seal on the other side to maintain the effect and define the boundary, Hazō thinks it'll be tricky to project the cutting field super far. That said, Hazō thinks if he anchored the seal to an object, perhaps his Pangolin gauntlets, he could add an extended, invisible blade along the object's existing edges…
Prep Demolition Rune. Difficulty result: Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities.
This pacing is a little slow, but definitely comfortable. Hazō makes healthy progress on this seal; he thinks he's around a third of the way done.
Day 8
Prep RRBs.
Prep Faster Forward Rune.
Prep Demolition Seal. Difficulty result: Jōnin
Prep Ninja-radar rune. Difficulty result: Hazō thinks he could maybe do this rune.
Day 9
Prep Superchiller Rune. Difficulty result: Hazō thinks this rune is well within his capabilities.
Prep Goo Grenade. Difficulty result: Genin
Infuse RRBs.
Hazō's making good progress. Perhaps with a good assistant, he would have been finished by now. Regardless, he thinks that with luck, he should finish this seal in one more cycle.
[NB: No reroll since Hazō's Earthshaping is still quite high relative to his Primordial Sealing, though it's getting close… Congrats to him for rolling PrimSeal above ES for the first time!]
This rune is definitely a bit harder than he was expecting. He'll continue, but with slight discomfort. He thinks he's about a third of the way done.
Day 10
SSA recovery.
Day 11
SSA recovery.
Day 12
Prep RRBs.
Prep CATEARS.
Prep Reality Stabilizer Rune. Difficulty result: Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities.
Prep KISS. Difficulty result: Chūnin
Day 13
Prep RRBs.
Prep CATEARS.
Prep Reverse Chakra Filtering Rune. Difficulty result: Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities.
Prep Time Stretch Rune. Difficulty result: Hazō thinks this rune is well within his capabilities.
Day 14
Prep RRBs.
Prep CATEARS.
Prep Pause Rune. Difficulty result: Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities.
Infuse Earth Bullet.
Hazō completes the Explosive 2.0. It's a slightly bigger boom. Tentative mechanics: Same as explosive seal, but the dodge TN is 42 instead of 40. The returns are definitely diminishing, but he could probably try to research a chūnin-tier version…
Day 20 [Per the temporary rule this cycle, Hazō gets 1 free Fate Point, bringing him up to 2 FP. He then buys 2 FP, bringing him up to 4 FP.]
Infuse Earth Bullet.
Hazō completes the Earth Bullet seal. Tentative function: works on the nearest 1kg of dirt (usually between the user's feet). Dirt must be within Melee of the seal. Launches the dirt in the direction the seal is facing. Dirt gains no internal cohesion, and it doesn't work on non-loose material (e.g. stone). Not combat viable, no mechanics required.
Hazō completes RRBs! They're like Rocket Boots but reusable, with the strength and durability of the seal tuned up as well. Tentative mechanics: Reflexive Supplemental to activate, grants (+Sealmaster Sealing AB + 1; +9 for Hazō) to all physical rolls while active, grants +1 shift on Sprint actions while active, lasts 30 seconds. Hazō's Sealing stagnancy has cleared, and he gains 1 FP for overcoming this challenging project.
Hazō's making steady progress, and slowly gaining comfort with rune research. He thinks he's around two-thirds of the way done, and can finish this in another cycle with Jashin's luck.
Day 21
SSA recovery.
Day 22
SSA recovery.
You set up many past-blue HOWS of varying levels of past-blue, and set them up facing a wide variety of flora and fauna (see the list of creatures in the rune radius for inspiration). No negative effects were observed.
A Light Relay tuned to past-blue successfully emits past-blue when exposed to a past-blue HOWS.
You left your island and found another, larger, lightly wooded island to the northeast, getting near Snow Country territory. Hazō buried the Fast Forward Rune a hundred feet underground, and he tried to clean up as many of the time-frozen gnats as he could, though some certainly slipped through the cracks. Hazō's second runic prototype infusion on the new island seems to have affected the fauna again – this time causing the birds and bees nearby to hasten and slow. Unfortunately, genjutsu-laden birdsong that accelerates and decelerates at random is not pleasant to listen to.
You briefed Kagome and Kei on the Akatsuki dossier. Kei was suitably pessimistic about your odds of victory. They'll think about countermeasures, but neither of them are particularly adept weapons designers, relatively speaking. They can't judge the ideas fully without knowing what exactly they entail, and even Hazō can't predict exactly what these runes will do, so their best feedback in order is:
Time Stop Runes
Kagome: Time stopping them is basically the same as killing them, seems fine. Even if it's temporary, lots of ways to kill them if you can set up outside it.
Kei: Agrees, this seems like the right category of effect to counter their absurd defensive powers.
Chakra Potential Runes
Kagome: Some of them are sealmasters, so maybe will have chakra-free alternatives. Chakra-drainers exist, so they might have at least put some thought to what they'd do without chakra.
Kei: Important factors here: would shut down active ninjutsu, or just prevent casting more? Would it shut down bloodlines?
Hot Pocket Runes
Kagome: Seems great. Bigger boom.
Kei: Assuming some level of in-team paranoia (S-rank ninja, so guaranteed), they may have some plans to deal with big boom. Still, big boom is always a good start.
Runes that activate seals
Kagome: Isn't going to kill Konan, but shuts down a key capability. What's the plan for actually killing her?
Kei: It mimics her own ability, so it's not completely new like Time Stop. Still seems super promising to turn it against her.
Runes that disrupt chakra threads
Kagome: This is probably going to require a chakra thread user to adequately develop. Do we need to go capture a Sand ninja?
Kei: Sounds like it would totally nullify Sasori. There's probably some complication here making it not so easy… but it sounds like it would work.
General feedback:
Kagome: (no feedback, just envious about Hazō runecrafting big fancy weapons, and him not being able to do that)
Kei: It sounds like there are lots of ways to kill them if we can lure them into range of the glowing, humming, static, slow-to-activate runes. The most important thing, then, is finding a way to reliably get them into range to activate a rune. Assume they're not going to be fooled by trivial things like "start an engagement, run to a prepared site, they chase us into trap/ambush". Solve a way to reliably deliver the rune effect, and then slot in whatever kill rune is required to win the current conflict. Without a delivery mechanism, all the kill runes in the world do nothing.
Hazō's technique hacking lessons are progressing well. He misses having Ino to learn beside, to check his understanding with, and to bounce ideas off of.
Hazō has spent 7 FP, bought 3 FP, gotten 1 FP for free thanks to the temporary rule this cycle, earned 1 FP for completing a difficult project, and refreshed 1 FP. Net: -1 FP.
"No, he was right. If it was effecting, with an E, that would mean that the rune was the one causing time to exist. With an A it means that it's altering time."
"No one likes a smartass, Mari."
"I'll have you know that Jiraiya liked my ass just fine."
"Lalalalalala!!!!"
Clarification: This Hazou is a Shadow Clone, so why not dispel immediately as the true Hazou ran farther away, in case of esoteric effects that could affect the true body through the Shadow Clone?
Given the state of the world currently, the stakes and the race, do we want to... Immediately share the T-series of runes through Noburi to Naruto and Orochimaru so he can learn the rune and use it to advantage his own research, and craft more for Naruto to help his FOOM efforts?
Basically, leaf is already said to have a basic training advantage thanks to shadow clone, even before infinite Chakra was added to the mix. Put literal time manipulation into the mix on top of that ...?
We want to have every advantage we can get when we finally move against Akatsuki right? Of course initial revulsion to the idea is natural, but it's worth considering. Maybe not for the T103, but at higher numbers...
You'd have to make a very compelling argument to convince me of this. Time runes are not something we have to reveal in the grand scheme of things. It's unlikely that they will play a significant immediate role in the defeat of the Akatsuki, so there is no strict need to brief Naruto on their technical specs or, indeed, their existence.
The confrontation with the Akatsuki is also likely to happen relatively soon, a matter of months more than years. Naruto's plan cannot hold forever, and once it becomes unraveled the expectation is that we will be in place to deliver the killing blow. Even had we meaningfully powerful time runes now, it would make little difference in such a short timeframe. Especially since Naruto physically getting up in their face and fighting them sounds like a last resort at best, compared to the ideal outcome of "we get them too close to a rune and then they no longer exist".
Meanwhile, the costs. Not only is this exactly the sort of thing that clan secrets are made of, not only is it the sort of thing that stands to make up for FOOM leaking and give us back our growth rate advantage over the rest of Leaf, it is an innovation that rests solely on our creativity. We have no special advantage in making use of this technology other than that we were the one who thought to try it. If Orochimaru learns of it, he becomes exactly as capable as we are of exploiting this line of research to his own ends. By contrast, we don't know how long it will take for him to even consider the idea on his own.
We've given Orochimaru so much power already, despite knowing that we must overcome him at some point in the future if Uplift is to mean anything. At this point, I cannot condone any further empowerment of Orochimaru that is not clearly actually necessary for our goal, rather than somewhat marginally useful for one of our more desperate fallback plans.
Clarification: This Hazou is a Shadow Clone, so why not dispel immediately as the true Hazou ran farther away, in case of esoteric effects that could affect the true body through the Shadow Clone?
What if the clone was already affected by the time it thought to dispel itself? In such a situation, it might be better for the clone to remain afflicted but active to help prevent the affliction from returning to the original. Then alternatives could be thought of. Would reverse summoning place the original beyond the range of the failure's ability to follow, for example?
Canabisu wishes to give you a 'general debrief' of his findings after two years in Arachnid. I understand it was quite stressful for him to spend so long away from his pack, surrounded by only alien creatures of such a different culture, and you are one of the few that was with him in this unusual travail. I believe he also has plans to 'rehabilitate' Cantelabra, who spent so much of his youth among spiders instead of a proper dog pack, with which he would like your assistance."
"I see," Cannai said. "Well, perhaps you will be free this evening? The Gray Oak pack is holding a taleswap in memory of Canaut, and they have made a humble request for your presence."
Hazō winced. "Once the training is over, I have seals to research. Depending on its duration, maybe I could join after the research is finished? Assuming no complications, of course."
"It is fine, summoner. Go and be a dutiful student. Canabisu will understand that you do not want ill-mannered Toads ripping your limbs off, I'm sure. You do not need to push yourself to rush your research. The Gray Oak pack would be grateful for your presence on another day. Time does not matter to the dead; they can always wait."
Often, those prototypes tested tiny, trivial properties of individual components (something he could not frivolously do with his limited supply of runic substrate)
Yeah the obvious angle of empowering allies is pretty much all I've got here. I'm not in favor either, just thought it was worth considering. It is, undoubtedly, an advantage. Multiplying an advantage is generally good tactics.
But of course it's not worth winning the battle at the expense of the war.
Kei: It sounds like there are lots of ways to kill them if we can lure them into range of the glowing, humming, static, slow-to-activate runes. The most important thing, then, is finding a way to reliably get them into range to activate a rune. Assume they're not going to be fooled by trivial things like "start an engagement, run to a prepared site, they chase us into trap/ambush". Solve a way to reliably deliver the rune effect, and then slot in whatever kill rune is required to win the current conflict. Without a delivery mechanism, all the kill runes in the world do nothing.
Since this didn't work, I think we want to make sure to research runes that will burn themselves out in a matter of days or a week at most, so we can destroy them before we leave whichever research site we're using at the time.
Kei: It sounds like there are lots of ways to kill them if we can lure them into range of the glowing, humming, static, slow-to-activate runes. The most important thing, then, is finding a way to reliably get them into range to activate a rune. Assume they're not going to be fooled by trivial things like "start an engagement, run to a prepared site, they chase us into trap/ambush". Solve a way to reliably deliver the rune effect, and then slot in whatever kill rune is required to win the current conflict. Without a delivery mechanism, all the kill runes in the world do nothing.
Honestly, part of me wants to focus on creating wormhole effects, or otherwise making the effects of the rune activate at a distance from the actual rune itself. I think focusing on those would be the best bet for hitting Akatsuki.
Either that or making the rune itself do damage at a massive range.
Sensible first step would be to put runic traps in the places where Akatsuki members would need to go in order to do the things we don't want them to do - that is, open the Rift or burn Leaf to the ground. Static defenses (which they can't tear through at will) gives us room to retake strategic initiative, maybe expand those defenses or develop bait.
Honestly, part of me wants to focus on creating wormhole effects, or otherwise making the effects of the rune activate at a distance from the actual rune itself. I think focusing on those would be the best bet for hitting Akatsuki.
Some sort of "extradimensional movement", maybe? Imagine if we could create an artificial rift/pocket universe, drop a rune into it, collapse it to a rift scar, then command that rift scar to move N meters thataway and then unseal its contents (which are set to activate immediately upon being unsealed).
Difficulty: Jōnin
Movable: No
Components: 2
Duration: 1 hour
Makes an attached object disappear, along with the seal. After a while, the object reappears.
Turned out to be easier to just do it with dimensionalism, go figure. Ah, I am glad you found a solution in the end.
Mechanically: The seal wraps space around itself and the attached object, generating a storage space. Time does not pass inside the space but the space itself unwinds over time as 'spatial elasticity' pulls reality back to normal, at which point the object and the seal reappear. (NB: This is single use, as are all seals unless specified otherwise.)
We need to modify this to move under its own power (or maybe by making a rune that could push Vanished objects around), and we have a basically undetectable delivery mechanism* with an arbitrary payload.
* Bullshit Sharingan senses may be able to detect it, I guess. Which is why I wanted Neji here to confirm whether he'd be able to detect that.
After TR 125 finishes, do difficulty checks on Temporal Rune 150. If the check comes back as harder than "...well within...". Drop the dilation factor by 5% and try again up to 4 times.
As these runes complete and space opens up, work on Time Stretch, TR 150, Runic Air Domes, Runic HOWS, Chakra Mapping Rune, and Storage Runes in that order. Full prep.
If any prep day comes back with a difficulty of more than "...well within..." do not proceed. Move to the next rune.
Aim for a rune duration of 7 days where applicable
We think we're able to replicate the EM Nuke effect with a rune, we're able to research it now.
We're hesitant to bring this back into existence, yet ways to destroy a city with runes are not uncommon, and unlike EM, this couldn't be learned by anyone with Fire Element.
This likely would kill the non-Summoner members of Akatsuki (with the exception of Konan).
We brought you along as our sanity checker, so are we crazy to consider this?
If she's adamantly against it, don't proceed.
Should we tell Kagome that it's inspired by the reports of Isan's destruction?
Dogs
Go see what Canabisu has to say in his debrief about his travels
Assist in his "rehabilitation" of Cantelabra
Attend the Gray Oak's taleswap for Canaut
Misc.
Continue learning TH
Scribe and distribute RRBs to the team
Test if Light Relay can output a visible color from past-blue input
The new naming scheme of Fast Forward Runes, This one has a time dilation factor of 150%. Reduction in AoE (1 Zone target) in exchange for increased dilation factor, but the same duration (7 days) as the Temporal Rune 125.
If this is meant to be recursive, you should specify that.
Two more things: if you can fit in a conversation with Canabisu, that would be good, and it would give the QMs more to work with (idk if the conversation with Kei can fill a whole chapter). And I am once again asking you to specify that all the runes we research have a duration of less than 30 days.
Could I prevail on you to make the switch to "Temporal Rune"? I'm happy enough with any name that uses the T100 versioning, but I think Temporal Rune has a bit more gravitas to it. That, and others in the hivemind seem to feel like Fast Forward Rune is specifically lacking in verisimilitude, so this would satisfy both positions.
