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Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

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On the one hand, we killed several people in a DMZ.

On the other hand, we fought two CQC jounin in CQC and killed one of them without our full party there and without losing anyone, even the chu-genin.

In theory I could see Jiraiya taking this as a sign that we need to be channeled more productively, e.g. by throwing us against fragile targets in Rice, such as a Snaketology research facility or two.
 
This meeting with J is going to be awesome; I can already tell.

Now, is there a way to spend our XP to help us with J? Or should we just spend some on border hopping skills and call it a day?
 
I think that if we spin it right, we can, while telling the complete truth, weasel our way out of responsibility. He'll be aware that's what we're doing, of course, but he'll probably credit us for trying at least.

Here's how I see that going: "We came out of Hidden Mountain (this is NOT the time to hide it; if we really want to, we can make it an open secret [There's a thing there but we promised not to tell, it might or might not be of use to you but diplomacy would be more effective in 9 months; insert pregnancy joke here]). We decided to take what seemed to be a relatively-straightforward scroll retrieval mission to work off the rust, but there were unforeseen circumstances; you know how that goes, C-rank curse and all. Circumstances necessitated we make a fast exit and we didn't have the option then to not hurt anyone. When we did have the chance, though, instead of fighting the squads that were chasing us, we created a diversion so that we wouldn't have to injure anyone else, and made our escape. We apologize greatly for the inconvenience our actions have caused you and we offer joint exclusive use of [whatever] seals that are in active development to help in repayment. We planned to spend the next months developing our skillbase in Iron, developing new seals, and making Pangolin contacts."

e: slight addendum at the end.
 
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Cariyaga said:
I think that if we spin it right, we can, while telling the complete truth, weasel our way out of responsibility. He'll be aware that's what we're doing, of course, but he'll probably credit us for trying at least.

Here's how I see that going: "We came out of Hidden Mountain (this is NOT the time to hide it; if we really want to, we can make it an open secret [There's a thing there but we promised not to tell, it might or might not be of use to you but diplomacy would be more effective in 9 months; insert pregnancy joke here]). We decided to take what seemed to be a relatively-straightforward scroll retrieval mission to work off the rust, but there were unforeseen circumstances; you know how that goes, C-rank curse and all. Circumstances necessitated we make a fast exit and we didn't have the option then to not hurt anyone. When we did have the chance, though, instead of fighting the squads that were chasing us, we created a diversion so that we wouldn't have to injure anyone else, and made our escape. We apologize greatly for the inconvenience our actions have caused you and we offer joint exclusive use of [whatever] seals that are in active development."
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Hazou: And that's what happened.

Jiraiya: So let me get this straight. You went off to Tea, killing half a dozen Leaf-nin in the process; then once in Tea you located not only the scroll but intel that is clearly important enough to be on my radar, intel that you refuse to tell me; you then went to Hot Springs, killed a Jonin in the middle of a DMZ, then ran off; and, oh yes, while trying to escape both the pursuit and another Leaf patrol, decided it would be a tactical decision to set a forest on fire.

Hazou: Yes?

Jiraiya: And you call this an inconvenience.

Hazou: Umm...

Jiraiya: Ok, no. *murder noises*
 
Also, we're only making the assumption that Joutaro is a leaf nin. He wasn't wearing a headband or anything, if he wanted the protection afforded to him as part of a DMZ he should not have been disguised as a civilian.

e: We are also NOT refusing to tell Jiraiya the intel on Mountain, we're just informing him of our promise not to interfere with them, and that if he presses, we are, of course, willing.

...We should also inform the pangolin to distrust Jiraiya if Kei dies within the next few days.
 
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Things we can give Jiraiya:

  • The bodies of those Leaf nin Mari killed (he might kill us for this).
  • Information about Rain using a rain-based ninja detection jutsu.
  • Continued working relations with the pangolin summoner.
  • Hazou's seal ideas (he might kill us for this).
  • Continued working relations with a jonin and her team of special-jonin/chunin.
  • Information about Snaketology.
  • The promise of a useful potential ally in nine months, so long as he doesn't pry before then, which would piss that potential ally off.
  • A supply of infused macerator/PMYF seals (although we probably shouldn't ask Kagome to do anything that remotely resembles Sealing-Sweatshop).
  • A "we're sorry we caused an international incident and maybe set off WW4" card.
 
So a little confused:
1) Was it confirmed 10 days have passed?
2) If 10 days have passed, can we spend Training/Research on that time? Because we could have at least researched one of our Seal ideas that are more basic in that time (or trained)
 
faflec said:
decided it would be a tactical decision to set a forest on fire.
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Objectively, that was absolutely a good tactical decision. They stopped following us and nobody died!

And there were a bunch of ninja already present to fight the fire! It was basically a controlled burn. We probably saved Leaf from the trouble of a much bigger fire a few years down the line.
 
The three from Hot Spring and the three from Leaf, equals six ninja. Unless there where more, you can never truly tell with good ninja. Also by giving us an exact location he is letting us know that he will have home ground advantage. If we want to even the playing field in the case of paranoia we should get a detailed map of the area and draw a circle around the village to represent what would be a day of travel for ninja and find a village one day out from the place. Our reply should be we can not make it to the location within the time limit, we can meet you at $Ninja_travel_day_out_village within that time frame else it will be four days of travel due to &Excuse(Injury, Distance, Other).

My own leaning would be to see his response to our delay/relocation letter to better gauge the amount of information he has on us before we go giving everything to him. With the way his letter is written it seems like he only has a vague idea of the level of involvement in the DMZ, and this is a way of making the guilty sweat and talk more than they mean to. I am still going to advocate that we come mostly clean with him, but to only address what he brings up first.
 
Something to recall on planning a response is that this is yet another case where Hazou is merely one vote among six and Mari will exercise her jounin override if necessary.

So the plan should not be "we do X, Y, and Z". It is much better to phrase it as, "We want to argue for X, Y, and Z and of these Y is the most important thing and we will give on the other two if only we can get Y." Be sure to distinguish what Hazou will argue to the mat on versus what you merely think might be a good idea.
 
Traiden said:
The three from Hot Spring and the three from Leaf, equals six ninja. Unless there where more, you can never truly tell with good ninja. Also by giving us an exact location he is letting us know that he will have home ground advantage. If we want to even the playing field in the case of paranoia we should get a detailed map of the area and draw a circle around the village to represent what would be a day of travel for ninja and find a village one day out from the place. Our reply should be we can not make it to the location within the time limit, we can meet you at $Ninja_travel_day_out_village within that time frame else it will be four days of travel due to &Excuse(Injury, Distance, Other).

My own leaning would be to see his response to our delay/relocation letter to better gauge the amount of information he has on us before we go giving everything to him. With the way his letter is written it seems like he only has a vague idea of the level of involvement in the DMZ, and this is a way of making the guilty sweat and talk more than they mean to. I am still going to advocate that we come mostly clean with him, but to only address what he brings up first.
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Might just be me, but J's letter sounded pretty pissed off at us and confident we did a bad thing. Pretty sure asking for a delay, expecially when he specifically said no delays would make him more upset at us. This changes significantly depending on what the timeline is. If it's the day after we escaped, then we're in huge trouble. If it's 10 days after we escaped, then we're probably about to go do a mission (and less likely to be in huge trouble). It's unclear to me which situation we're in.

Decent chance we might find out what the plot is now though.
 
Well, then we should be polite and up front about what he directly asks of us as far as the DMZ event and should give him all that we remember from the tattoo and than be polite in saying nothing more that does not directly relate to the scroll should he ask and nothing else.

@OliWhail I don't know what I was talking about. I thought the Hot Spring pursuit team and the Leaf Patrol where cells of three each.
 
So I think we all agree that the very first thing we need to do is Clear Communication no jutsu with Kei?

Maybe something like...

"Noburi and I had already guessed your attraction to Inoue-Sensei way back in the swamp of death. Noburi was upset that you wouldn't be attracted to him [ask Noburi before disclosing this, if we plan to], but otherwise neither of us have ever had any negative opinion on the subject. Akane was surprised, but likewise had no negative reaction.

"What you said was hurtful, but Akane and I recognise that you didn't really mean it, and even if you had, we would still want to be your friends. Noburi thinks you probably did, and he's very upset, but a concerted effort from the group could probably convince him otherwise.

"Inoue-Sensei is completely on edge over the whole situation, and we think she probably sent you away to give both you and herself a day to cool down before having this conversation, rather than to kick you out of the group.

"Please stop being so miserable, everything is, if not alright, then at least fixable*.

"*Except that J-man is about to murder us. You can be miserable about that."
 
MadScientist said:
So I think we all agree that the very first thing we need to do is Clear Communication no jutsu with Kei?

Maybe something like...

"Noburi and I had already guessed your attraction to Inoue-Sensei way back in the swamp of death. Noburi was upset that you wouldn't be attracted to him [ask Noburi before disclosing this, if we plan to], but otherwise neither of us have ever had any negative opinion on the subject. Akane was surprised, but likewise had no negative reaction.

"What you said was hurtful, but Akane and I recognise that you didn't really mean it, and even if you had, we would still want to be your friends. Noburi thinks you probably did, and he's very upset, but a concerted effort from the group could probably convince him otherwise.

"Inoue-Sensei is completely on edge over the whole situation, and we think she probably sent you away to give both you and herself a day to cool down before having this conversation, rather than to kick you out of the group.

"Please stop being so miserable, everything is, if not alright, then at least fixable*.

"*Except that J-man is about to murder us. You can be miserable about that."
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Yeah, let's disobey Inoue-sensei's direct order and talk to her first. That'll go about just fine.
 
@MadScientist I'm tempted to say the very first thing we need to do with Kei is express how glad we are that she's back and safe, and that we had been worried about her. In CCnJ style, but still. I think immediately jumping to the subject she has spent a week or more obsessively worrying about might set the wrong tone.
 
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