Eh, it's an investment in Kei's emotional health, helps a prosocial ninja continue to live (not that Tenten seemingly does anything other than combat/chakra beast missions, but that's it's own good), and bringing Tenten in on the RB-Kunai Project would allow us to eventually get a solid RW Buff for Kei (+8 from RB, combined with CotWG, is no small feat).
We wouldn't be letting Tenten in on Goo Bombs, Chakdar v2, MARS, CATEARS, lithosealing, FOOM, or even RRBs. Just RBs and Rocket Kunai (which don't really exist yet).
If only Mai were still alive... she had re-spec'd into RW
No, I think we just don't do this, we don't need to say anything to Kei. Kei isn't asking for this. She knows better. This is purely a player initiative as far as I can tell.
Eh, it's an investment in Kei's emotional health, helps a prosocial ninja continue to live (not that Tenten seemingly does anything other than combat/chakra beast missions, but that's it's own good), and bringing Tenten in on the RB-Kunai Project would allow us to eventually get a solid RW Buff for Kei (+8 from RB, combined with CotWG, is no small feat).
We wouldn't be letting Tenten in on Goo Bombs, Chakdar v2, MARS, CATEARS, lithosealing, FOOM, or even RRBs. Just RBs and Rocket Kunai (which don't really exist yet).
If only Mai were still alive... she had re-spec'd into RW
We wouldn't be letting Tenten in on Goo Bombs, Chakdar v2, MARS, CATEARS, lithosealing, FOOM, or even RRBs. Just RBs and Rocket Kunai (which don't really exist yet).
I'd be content to allow Tenten the standard Goketsu Sealing Package (Goo Bombs, Rocket Boots, chakdar v1, etc), and to let Tenten take point on RB-Kunai (even retroactively, if the QMs would allow a Declaration).
From a purely Rocket Kunai perspective, Rocket Kunai might aren't worth much to us.
Rocket Kunai are extremely likely to be outperformed by KISS, so we don't want to sink XP into combo stunts for Rocket Kunai.
And without those combo stunts, she's better of with CotWG.
They wouldn't really be necessary for the RB-Kunai project? Right now, it seems like Tenten is "just" getting an insane amount of explosive tags and storage seals, not any of our actual seals (quote below).
From a purely Rocket Kunai perspective, Rocket Kunai might aren't worth much to us.
Rocket Kunai are extremely likely to be outperformed by KISS, so we don't want to sink XP into combo stunts for Rocket Kunai.
And without those combo stunts, she's better of with CotWG.
Honestly, assuming Tenten has decent buffs, she's probably rolling 60 or higher already on her RW rolls. I'm not sure that giving Tenten Goo Bombs would be meaningful in the same way that it would be to give Sasha Goo Bombs. I suppose we could ask Kei, since she presumably has a better grasp of Tenten's abilities than we do?
As an aside, many thanks to @eaglejarl, @Velorien, and @Paperclipped. I know that we (read: I) sorta bombarded y'all with a thousand questions yesterday, and I really appreciate the responses. I can't imagine that they were easy on the spoons, and I just wanted to say that the efforts y'all put in are both seen and appreciated!
O most enlightened and mighty @faflec, when did this adoption offer actually take place? I feel like it was early on, before the Gōketsu actually had most of their present shinies, but I can't find the chapter.
O most enlightened and mighty @faflec, when did this adoption offer actually take place? I feel like it was early on, before the Gōketsu actually had most of their present shinies, but I can't find the chapter.
Kei should have done this sooner. She had known that news of the battle had preceded their arrival. She should have hastened here the hour, nay, the minute she saw the casualty lists. Instead, it had taken duty to propel her, and the discovery that Tenten and Akane were not together. Kei ran for the training grounds.
The training dummies were all but made of iron, but Tenten continued throwing missiles without end. Her ever-capable, ever-alert girlfriend barely registered her approach.
"Tenten."
Tenten lowered her arms.
"Keiko."
In Tenten's uniquely-expressive eyes, Kei read a reflection of her own feelings. Pain. Anger. Helplessness… but also guilt.
If there was one thing Kei had not felt upon receiving news of Jiraiya's death, it was guilt. In the final moments, she had given all she had to that relationship, had for once acted like a competent human being. She was not the one who had failed to transcend her limits.
"Tenten?"
Tenten recovered her shuriken, then beckoned her over to their tree. They sat.
"Chūnin were permitted," she whispered.
There had been five chūnin on the Leaf casualty list. Five who had been in Mist with Jiraiya at the time, and had gone to fight alongside him on Nagi Island. Five chūnin whose impact on the battle, if any, would remain forever unknown.
But also five chūnin who never returned. The most probable outcome… was that Tenten would have changed nothing, and then been forever lost to her.
Tenten nodded as if following the chain of thought, then closed her eyes. "No right answer."
Just like last time she had seen Tenten so distressed, Kei could say nothing, could offer nothing. Indeed, it was positively selfish of her to have added another layer of suffering to Tenten's already troubled mind with her influence on Tenten's life.
They sat in silence, Kei as close as she could. She wished to believe that the distance was narrowing, little by little, but if so, the process was slow enough that it would require whatever the opposite of a telescope was to identify. They watched silently as the winter sun set, early enough that it was as if the day had never been.
She recalled the promises she had made to herself during the Chūnin Exam, the personal rewards that would be worth far more to her than a medal bestowed by Captain Zabuza before a crowd of strangers—and far more frightening.
But even Kei's social skills were enough to tell her this was not the time.
Instead, she would make the offer she had come to make, and perhaps the gifts she offered would salve Tenten's spirit, if only a little.
"Tenten… the Gōketsu Clan is preparing to undergo a phase of expansion. We are seeking talented non-clan shinobi. Would you like to join us?"
Tenten's response took barely a second.
"No."
Had Kei not been sitting down, she would have staggered back.
"Are you quite certain?"
Tenten nodded.
"But why? Adoption is the greatest gift a clan can offer."
"Freedom," Tenten said simply.
Freedom? An alien concept for a shinobi. The closest Kei had come to freedom was as a missing-nin, her choices conditioned by nothing more than the need to survive while evading the pursuit of the world's greatest hunter-nin. Fundamentally, all choices were made by others, or by the demands of the situation. Perhaps Tenten's experience was less painful than her own—it would not be difficult—but enough so to refuse this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?
"You would have access to resources far beyond the reach of a common-born," Kei pleaded.
Tenten turned her head to indicate the vague direction of her home, then her shuriken holster. "All I need."
"You would have protection from anybody seeking to exploit you, or manipulate you, or simply interfere with your life!"
Tenten held out a hand, palm up. "Too valuable." Then the other hand, as if completing a set of scales. "Not valuable enough." She gave an ironic smile.
"A secure income!"
"Leaf needs to show strength. Reassure clients. Many D-ranks, C-ranks."
Kei, increasingly desperate, only barely stopped herself from appealing to Tenten's loss of direction now that Maito Gai was dead.
Finally, she took the plunge.
"Me!"
Tenten looked at her with perfectly clear eyes.
"I already have you. Always and forever."
And with that, Kei fell silent.
But later, before she left, there was one more distressing conversation remaining.
"Tenten… I must make a difficult, perhaps dangerous, decision, and there is no one else I can ask for help…"
This would've also been soon after Jiraiya's death, with Hazou appearing to be an untested, untrained teenage chunnin taking leadership of a fledgling clan that lacked Jiraiya's protection. Hiashi would've also been either the Hokage, or an obvious contender for the Hat... and the Goketsu wouldn't exactly have been in Hiashi's good graces.
"Tenten… the Gōketsu Clan is preparing to undergo a phase of expansion. We are seeking talented non-clan shinobi. Would you like to join us?"
Tenten's response took barely a second.
"No."
Had Kei not been sitting down, she would have staggered back.
"Are you quite certain?"
Tenten nodded.
"But why? Adoption is the greatest gift a clan can offer."
"Freedom," Tenten said simply.
Freedom? An alien concept for a shinobi. The closest Kei had come to freedom was as a missing-nin, her choices conditioned by nothing more than the need to survive while evading the pursuit of the world's greatest hunter-nin. Fundamentally, all choices were made by others, or by the demands of the situation. Perhaps Tenten's experience was less painful than her own—it would not be difficult—but enough so to refuse this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?
"You would have access to resources far beyond the reach of a common-born," Kei pleaded.
Tenten turned her head to indicate the vague direction of her home, then her shuriken holster. "All I need."
"You would have protection from anybody seeking to exploit you, or manipulate you, or simply interfere with your life!"
Tenten held out a hand, palm up. "Too valuable." Then the other hand, as if completing a set of scales. "Not valuable enough." She gave an ironic smile.
"A secure income!"
"Leaf needs to show strength. Reassure clients. Many D-ranks, C-ranks."
Kei, increasingly desperate, only barely stopped herself from appealing to Tenten's loss of direction now that Maito Gai was dead.
Kuni Independent Seeking Seal (KISS)
After a half-second delay, the seal will powerfully home in on the strongest chakra source it detects(a function of CP and distance, presumably whoever the kunai was just thrown at).
The end result is a kuni that flies normally at first, then abruptly twists in the air and homes in on the target, turning and accelerating to make dodging a nightmare.
Hazou plans to make stabilisation easier by embedding the seals inside the blades of ES crystal kuni, to prevent the thrust from making the kuni spin out, and activating them through MARS/ARS.
Any design space he can conserve by reducing stabilisation needs, he'll allocate towars better homing.
Consult with Kei for exact specs and design needs.
Kuni Independent Seeking Seals: Elemental Synergy (KISSES)
As per KISS, but activating the seal primes for a half hour(after witch it burns out). A primed seal can be triggered by agitating it with intense Wind-element chakra, such as the weapon-enhancement effect from CotWG.
The goal here is action economy, so Kei can apply CotWG and KISSES to an attack with a single supplemental action.
I got a seal idea, the Substitute Boom Seal, a explosive seal (Or all sorts of nastier stuff) that activates when the object it's attached to gets the Replacement Jutsu cast on it.
"Hm? Oh, yes. Good morning, My Lord." The older man turned back to what he was doing: supervising a tradesman and a trio of children who were busily setting up a rope harness in order to hold a long stone pole perfectly upright.
"Whatcha doin'?" Noburi asked.
"Indulging— Following Lord Gōketsu's instructions in order to perform a scientific experiment." Gaku studied the pole and ropes. "I presume, anyway. Either that or undergoing a particularly bizarre form of hazing."
"Yeah, I was wondering about that," Noburi said. "When he gave me the pole and the envelope I started to ask him to explain it and then I remembered that I had things to do today and didn't want to get sucked into the vortex of bizarre that is my brother. Did he tell you what it's about?"
"No, My Lord. He merely stated that I was to ensure the pole was precisely vertical, then to precisely measure the length of its shadow, and to do so precisely at noon. Ah, thank you. That will be all." The last words were to the team that had been checking the support ropes on the pole; they bowed quickly and hustled away.
"Uh-huh. How are you determining what 'precisely' noon is?" Noburi asked, ignoring the byplay.
Gaku shrugged helplessly. "I am using the waterclock from the Lord's office, which has been canonical time for the Gōketsu since we moved here. However, since he emphasized the word 'precisely' I did not dare to move the clock out here as that would have distorted its rate of flow. Instead I have established a signal relay who will tell me when to take the measurement. I am going to take measurements twice per minute for five minutes on either side of noon."
"What are you using for your signal relay? Explosives?"
Gaku shook his head. "No, My Lord. On any other estate that would be an excellent choice, but on ours it would be dangerously ambiguous. I am instead using a gong."
As though illustrating his statement regarding ambiguity, a trio of explosions went off nearby as one of the clan children chopped firewood The Gōketsu Way. The Gōketsu Way, of course, involved piling a bunch of logs inside a stone hut, tossing an explosive tag into the center of the pile, and slamming the door. It did a wonderful job of processing chunks of tree into fuel, kindling, and tinder all at the same time, and the process was then repeated until the desired ratio of fuel to kindling had been achieved. (It had, upon several occasions, been pointed out that the Force Wall sawmill was a far faster and cleaner way to achieve the same effect. The clan children had deployed weaponized puppy dog eyes in order to buy themselves enough time to bring Kagome-sensei to their rescue, and thus had firewood processing continued in the traditional Gōketsu fashion instead of being abandoned for some newfangled system that might happen to be more efficient but was definitely far too dangerous for young children. Trusting them with hundreds of lethal explosives was one thing, but sharp edges? Never!)
Noburi looked up at the sun, which was almost overhead. "I'll have to ask—"
The sound of a ringing gong spread across the estate and Gaku quickly bent and inserted a small flag with a '1' on it into the ground precisely at the end of the pole's shadow.
"The other challenge, of course," Gaku said, "is that he specified the measurements must be precise. After some consideration I have decided to simply send him strings of the appropriate length rather than a numeric account of handspans or strides. Do you suppose this will suffice?"
"Gaku, I think he'll be delighted."
o-o-o-o
"Not like that!" Shima yelled, thumping Hazō on the head with her spatula. "What do you think you're doing, blundering through the consolidation like that?"
"What do you think this is, boy? A sparring match?" Fukasaku demanded. "Do you treat your Ino like that? You don't punch chakra into doing your will, you seduce her! Cozen her, treat her nicely! Like I do with Ma!"
These words, of course, led promptly to a marital spat in which Shima objected that Fukasaku never treated her half as well as chakra needed to be treated. Said spat soon devolved into something rather more physical than a sparring match, which made their instructions seem more than a little hypocritical.
Hazō forced himself not to glare at his teachers, nor make any comment about the hypocrisy. It had required only a handful of examples to determine the unwisdom of giving side-eye, saying 'geez' at their pronouncements, or in any other way expressing a dislike of physical correction or other Toadly training techniques.
Instead, he reminded himself that he was just about done. This was his final exam and, if he passed, he would be an acknowledged jutsu creator, capable of bending the world to his will in yet a third way. He breathed, centering himself and clearing the kinks from his chakra to ensure that it would flow without hitch or hesitation.
With delicate 'fingers', he pulled the energy up from his hara, led it through the necessary twirls and spins within his chakra coils, (gently!) consolidated it, and flicked through a chain of handseals: Snake to raise the power, Rat to form it, and Ox to grant it purpose. He felt the moment when it all came together and the chakra construct burst forth from his lips, pushing ahead of it the words "Earth Element Technique: Furrowed Brow of the Earth Mother!"
In front of him, the ground flipped itself over in a long, neat, and most importantly straight furrow. It had taken an embarrassing number of tries to get it to that point; when he first created the jutsu it had tended to wander off in loops and swirls that, while quite artistic and beautiful, would likely be considered anti-helpful by a farmer.
The Toad Sages watched with narrowed eyes. Hazō held his breath, waiting for their judgement.
After a minute, Shima sniffed. "Not completely awful, I suppose."
Hazō grinned. "So is that it? Do I qualify?"
The Toad Sages looked at each other.
"I suppose if we qualify him it would get our afternoons back..." Fukasaku said.
"True. And he probably won't kill himself in the next couple of weeks."
The two nodded to one another and turned back to Hazō.
"By the power vested in me—" Fukasaku said.
"And me," Shima interjected.
"Yes, yes. By the power vested in us by centuries of experience with chakra manipulation and jutsu creation, and having trained and thoroughly examined your ability at such activites, we, the Sages of the Toad Clan, impart upon you the title of jutsu creator. Go forth into the world, Hazō of Clan Gōketsu, and speak to chakra in tones of both reverence and partnership. Lead it to your will and use your power always for the betterment of your clan."
Hazō could feel his grin about to split his face.
The toads let the moment hang solemnly in the air for no more than a pair of seconds before Shima nodded firmly and said, "Right, that's enough of that. Come inside and have some of my pie. It's a new recipe."
Hazō followed her inside, feeling like he could walk on air without the need of skywalker seals.
o-o-o-o
"What's wrong?" asked Kagome as Hazō settled down next to him. His student was re-reading the letter that he had been holding when he returned from the Seventh Path a few minutes ago. Re-reading it for at least the third time, based on what Kagome knew of his student's reading speed.
"Letter from Naruto," Hazō said, distractedly.
"Well?" Kagome demanded after a moment. "He wants a progress report, or what?"
Hazō looked up, his face serious, and waved the paper. "He wants a progress report, yes. Because Orochimaru is almost done with the rift runes. He's been working on one that will open it and then a constellation of three others that move it. The first decouples it from its spatial location, the second pushes on it, the third pulls on it. He estimates he'll be able to move it somewhere between five and twenty miles with one set of runes."
Kagome swallowed as the world's maw stretched open beneath him. The power of the afterlife in the hands of the Snake? The psychotic murderer, traitor, biosealer, and general crazypants bad guy who cared for nothing and no one, who had already tried to murder Kei and Hazō once. What might such a man do with the ability to bring people back from the dead, or imprison his foes in a place that could not be escaped? That would eat away at them slowly, leave them desperate and willing to do anything in exchange for their jailor extracting them from the slow mind-death of the beyond?
Worse, everyone else clearly thought this was a great idea.
Author's Note: Still not excited about the Canabisu / Cantelabra scenes, so we'll assume those happened offscreen.
Update duration: 12 days – 1 day for moving site, 11 days for research. I (ed: 'I' in this case means the inimitable and never-sufficiently-thanked @Paperclipped) only did four research tracks as I don't think Hazō can sustain 5 at the moment. If I'm wrong, please explain so that I can get it right for the following updates, but no additional prep days will happen in this update. Prep days take a lot of thought and discussion from the QMs. In the future, you shouldn't expect more than 10-12 prep days to get done (except perhaps in circumstances where a lot of the prepped seals are straightforward variations of each other) in a single update.
Prep day notes:
Prep day on Wormhole was done on the runic component, on the assumption that the hard part was opening the wormhole rather than giving out a signal.
Prep day on Time Twister was skipped due to the rune spec not being in the linked post.
Prep day on Balefire Bomb was skipped as I could not understand what rune was supposed to do from the linked post.
While "this rune smites the surrounding region of The Paint with a blast of eldritch fire (if it could even be called such), scouring it down to the metaphorical canvas" is very evocative, it doesn't help me understand what is happening or what the end result is.
Prep day on Substrate Rune was done on the extrusion version described first in the linked post.
Day 2
Prep for Army of One.
Prep for Force Blades.
Prep for CATEARS.
Prep Unchained TR150. Difficulty Result: Hazō thinks he could maybe do this rune.
Hazō thinks that pushing this series of runes as far as he can currently take it (i.e. infusing the highest TR he can manage) would remove a Sealing stagnancy barrier.
Day 3
Prep for Army of One.
Prep for Force Blades.
Prep for CATEARS.
Prep TRA200. Difficulty Result: Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities.
Specifically, Hazō has no clue how one might make an array of multiple runes working in concert. He does not think he has nearly enough experience in runecraft to invent this.
Day 4
Prep for Army of One.
Prep for Force Blades.
Prep for CATEARS.
Prep RARS. Difficulty Result: Chūnin
A single seal won't have the oomph to activate a rune, but Hazō can conceive of a design where dozens of seals work in concert to activate a rune remotely (via MARS). As Hazōpilot would know that the single-seal version wouldn't work, he directly prepped the multiple seal version.
Day 5
Prep for Army of One.
Prep for Force Blades.
Prep for CATEARS.
Prep Mirror Dragon Rune. Difficulty Result: Hazō thinks he could maybe do this rune.
Hazō decides that 'attacks' is too generic, and limits the scope of the rune to solely reflecting ninjutsu (not storing, as storing ninjutsu seems like a totally different research pathway). Hazō thinks doing this rune would remove a Sealing stagnancy barrier (though this is no guarantee that the rune is doable).
Day 6
Prep for Army of One.
Prep for Force Blades.
Infuse CATEARS.
Prep Space Stretch. Difficulty Result: Hazō thinks this rune is well within his capabilities.
Day 7
Prep for Army of One.
Prep for Force Blades.
Prep for CATEARS.
Prep Wormhole Rune. Difficulty Result: Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities.
Day 8
Prep for Army of One.
Prep for Force Blades.
Prep for CATEARS.
Prep Flashlight. Difficulty Result: Jiraiya
Hazō notes that directionally constraining seal outputs without dropoff in power is pretty hard – even Kagome's directional explosives chose to constrain the effect by sealing a part of the output rather than by shaping the explosion directly.
Day 9
Prep for Army of One.
Prep for Force Blades.
Prep for CATEARS.
Prep Magnifying Glass Rune. Difficulty Result: Hazō thinks he could maybe do this rune.
As per usual with seals that Hazō has notes on, the Sealing component is relatively easy, and the Calligraphy component is harder by the lack of discount. Hazō thinks he's a sixth of the way through this seal. He'd be happy to shave off ~2 prep days, as they don't increase the Calligraphy bonus.
As far as jōnin-level seals go, this is pretty easy. Hazō thinks he could no-prep this seal (with SSA). As it is, Hazō thinks he's a third of the way done.
This pace is pretty comfortable. Hazō thinks he's three-quarters of the way done.
Prep Substrate Extrusion Rune. Difficulty Result: Hazō thinks this rune is beyond his capabilities.
Day 11
SSA recovery.
Day 12
SSA recovery.
After a couple days of jetlag timelag, Hazō has adapted to his new schedule inside the TR125. I believe player calculations have this work out to ~3 hours a day, so you may use this extra time to have Hazō conduct extra reading of his various XP lootbox notes. That's 10 training blocks worth.
XP AWARD: 36 This update covered 12 days.
Brevity XP: 10
"GM had fun" XP: 0 It's getting harder to find fun stuff to write during lighthousing. Fortunately, Ma and Pa are always fun.
I didn't know you weren't excited about those scenes, if I had, I wouldn't have put them in the plan. I was under the impression, based on the way the plot hooks for those were delivered, that they would be interesting scenes to write.
After a couple days of jetlag timelag, Hazō has adapted to his new schedule inside the TR125. I believe player calculations have this work out to ~3 hours a day, so you may use this extra time to have Hazō conduct extra reading of his various XP lootbox notes. That's 10 training blocks worth.
"Yes, yes. By the power vested in us by centuries of experience with chakra manipulation and jutsu creation, and having trained and thoroughly examined your ability at such activites, we, the Sages of the Toad Clan, impart upon you the title of jutsu creator. Go forth into the world, Hazō of Clan Gōketsu, and speak to chakra in tones of both reverence and partnership. Lead it to your will and use your power always for the betterment of your clan."
Prep day on Balefire Bomb was skipped as I could not understand what rune was supposed to do from the linked post.
While "this rune smites the surrounding region of The Paint with a blast of eldritch fire (if it could even be called such), scouring it down to the metaphorical canvas" is very evocative, it doesn't help me understand what is happening or what the end result is.
Right, so while I don't know what the designer of the Balefire Bomb rune intended, I can clarify from the source material (A Wheel of Time) what 'Balefire' does.
Balefire destroys a target in a casual sense. When it hits something, it not only removes it from existence, but it removes some of its effects from the past and (as utterly annihilating a object will do) all of its effects on the future. In a metaphorical sense, it takes a eraser to the timeline of cause and effect; near the center of the effect everything is erased, and it also smudges stuff a little further away.
Examples:
We use Balefire on a kunai that just struck Kei. Kei no longer has a wound, or if a larger amount of time had passed, Kei's wound becomes smaller. That kunai, of course, can no longer do anything at all in the future. Because it is gone.
We use Balefire on Itachi, who just killed Tsunade. Tsunade is alive again, and may be severely/partially/not at all injured depending on how long has passed (longer=more injured) and how the death occurred. He also cannot kill anyone else in the future, as he is thoroughly dead.
Notably, memories are unaffected. Everyone will remember the events prior to the Balefire. Furthermore, this effect is generally of only a few seconds, although its possible that this varies for more 'significant' events.
Oh, also, if you use too much Balefire, reality really doesn't like it. In a "dropped the Goketsu Explosive Stockpile on the Great Rune" sense.
"Well?" Kagome demanded after a moment. "He wants a progress report, or what?"
Hazō looked up, his face serious, and waved the paper. "He wants a progress report, yes. Because Orochimaru is almost done with the rift runes. He's been working on one that will open it and then a constellation of three others that move it. The first decouples it from its spatial location, the second pushes on it, the third pulls on it. He estimates he'll be able to move it somewhere between five and twenty miles with one set of runes."
I didn't know you weren't excited about those scenes, if I had, I wouldn't have put them in the plan. I was under the impression, based on the way the plot hooks for those were delivered, that they would be interesting scenes to write.
Yeah, they feel like they have huge meat on the bone, but I can't come up with it. @Paperclipped was the one who introduced them and I would be interested to see him write them. Unfortunately, he's been too busy making the quest run.
