Remove ads

Marked for Death: A Rational Naruto Quest

Voting is open
Reader mode
I don't think there exists a meaningful way to exfiltrate any Goketsu ninja still in Leaf - I don't even think there's a meaningful way to stop them from being held hostage by Itachi. He can just sit and wait at the Goketsu compound until we come back or until he decides to take members of the clan hostage. It is extremely unlikely that anybody would be able to leave with him at the compound already. We are in a really, really awful situation and I don't really think we have feasible, simulationist ways out of it.

Also, we are in an incredibly poor situation without having access to FOOMing. We are absolutely reliant on him for research. This doesn't really feel like a solvable situation. We honestly got kinda completely ruined by Naruto saying he could keep Akatsuki off of us. I don't understand why he would have said that, from a simulationist perspective, when it now seems very clear that he wasn't remotely capable of it.

If there's one thing that's somewhat salt inducing, it's that we were given no indication that Naruto would lie about/overestimate his own capabilities. That feels very jarring - especially when it seems like the one thing Naruto probably would have been training since the BotG would be, like, almost exactly this. He absolutely hates Akatsuki and has a decent matchup against every member except for specifically Itachi (and I guess Konan), which he already knew, and who seems like their main external agent at this point.

Hopefully someone else can see a way out of this because I legitimately can't think of a way that stops Itachi from just taking every member of Goketsu in Leaf hostage.
 
Last edited:
Guys. Guys!

Another problem with the skywalk Team Uplift outta Leaf in the middle of night plan. (Or use gliders) Itachi's the summoner for the Crow Clan. This means he's a true flier. So he can fly and chase any members of Team Uplift that want to go missing pretty trivially.

sophistsDismay said:
I don't think there exists a meaningful way to exfiltrate any Goketsu ninja still in Leaf - I don't even think there's a meaningful way to stop them from being held hostage by Itachi. He can just sit and wait at the Goketsu compound until we come back or until he decides to take members of the clan hostage. It is extremely unlikely that anybody would be able to leave with him at the compound already. We are in a really, really awful situation and I don't really think we have feasible, simulationist ways out of it.

Also, we are in an incredibly poor situation without having access to FOOMing. We are absolutely reliant on him for research. This doesn't really feel like a solvable situation. We honestly got kinda completely ruined by Naruto saying he could keep Akatsuki off of us. I don't understand why he would have said that, from a simulationist perspective, when it now seems very clear that he wasn't remotely capable of it.

If there's one thing that's somewhat salt inducing, it's that we were given no indication that Naruto would lie about/overestimate his own capabilities. That feels very jarring - especially when it seems like the one thing Naruto probably would have been training since the BotG would be, like, almost exactly this. He absolutely hates Akatsuki and has a decent matchup against every member except for specifically Itachi (and I guess Konan), which he already knew, and who seems like their main external agent at this point.

Hopefully someone else can see a way out of this because I legitimately can't think of a way that stops Itachi from just taking every member of Goketsu in Lead hostage.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Agree whole heartedly.


sophistsDismay said:
We are in a really, really awful situation and I don't really think we have feasible, simulationist ways out of it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I really don't think we can dig outta this hole, so long as we're playing strictly simulationist.
 
Last edited:
Shrooms said:
Nah I think we can pretty reasonably get them out. Itachi isn't infallible.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
How? Cause if you have an idea, please, pray, tell. He has a flier. He has bullshit eyes. He should be expecting us to try and dip. Or at the very least not be 100% honest with him. He has our family in easy grabbing distance and kidnapping range. He has clones to monitor multiple people at once. He's also probably with another Akasuki (his partner that we don't know about).

And here's the real kicker! Even if we do manage to pull the wool over his eyes, by some god damn forsaken miracle, it doesn't matter, as he can just grab a Hyuga, put them on his crow, and track us down using their eyes. (Even if we give him the slip through some genius idea, we're only getting a few hours head start, max.)

If you're so confident, please, help out. As I'm all outta good, plausible ideas.
 
Last edited:
Shrooms said:
Nah I think we can pretty reasonably get them out. Itachi isn't infallible.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

What method do we have to exfiltrate Noburi when Itachi can just sit next to him until we arrive in Leaf?

Conversely, why would the Itachi shadow clone do anything other than exactly that when his mission right now is strictly to ensure Hazo isn't working on dimensionalism?
 
Last edited:
sophistsDismay said:
What method do we have to exfiltrate Noburi when Itachi can just sit next to him until we arrive in Leaf?

Conversely, why would the Itachi shadow clone do anything other than exactly that when his mission right now is strictly to ensure Hazo isn't working on dimensionalism?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
In Shrooms' defense, Itachi does need to sleep and his Shadow Clones (and Crows) desummon when he is unconscious.

OTOH, there's nothing stopping him from getting his partner to sit on Noburi when that is happening.
 
CitizenTen said:
How? Cause if you have an idea, please, pray, tell. He has a flier. He has bullshit eyes. He should be expecting us to try and dip. Or at the very least not be 100% honest with him. He has our family in easy grabbing distance and kidnapping range. He has clones to monitor multiple people at once. He's also probably with another Akasuki (his partner that we don't know about).

And here's the real kicker! Even if we do manage to pull the wool over his eyes, by some god damn forsaken miracle, it doesn't matter, as he can just grab a Hyuga, put them on his crow, and track us down using their eyes. (Even if we give him the slip through some genius idea, we're only getting a few hours head start, max.)

If you're so confident, please, help out. As I'm all outta good, plausible ideas.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
My general thoughts:

I think it likely Itachi doesn't actually stay in Leaf, watching the Goketsu estate, for the entire time. Notably, he has to sleep, (in the worlds where Sasori also has anti-sleep bioseals Itachi probably doesn't trust Sasori enough to implant them in him) and he can't keep Shadow Clones up while he's asleep, and no way he's keeping Prime in Leaf while he's asleep. So there most likely exists a period of time in which Itachi is incapable of preventing them from leaving, unless, say, he's woken up and alerted to the action by someone else, perhaps his Crow summons (if they can stay up while he's asleep, idk). This is complicated by two things:
  • The chakra cost of keeping a multitude of summons out even eight hours a day, every day, doesn't sound sustainable. He's still in a vulnerable position this close to Leaf and I don't see him letting his reserves drain too low.
  • They're Crows. People come and go from Leaf all the time, and all humans look alike. "Alert me when anyone skywalks out of Leaf" is a nonstarter. "Alert me when Goketsu Noburi skywalks out of Leaf" is just as much of a nonstarter.
So, skywalking out is probably possible, it would just cost Itachi way too much in resources to try and monitor us 24/7. Also note that any slower methods of alerting him that he may set up are insufficient: by the time the message reaches him and wakes him up, Team Uplift has already had plenty of time to put distance between themselves and Leaf, leaving no tracks behind to follow. No Hyuga, no Crow, no Hyuga-on-a-Crow, has the means to find us from that kind of distance.

And if for some reason we're still not confident about any of that, we do have an alternative option. Orochimaru has a secret tunnel out of Leaf for exactly this sort of situation, that we know about from our time living there. Getting Orochimaru's permission to use it doesn't sound easy, but we have Mari on our side and Orochimaru at least ostensibly has reason to want success for fellow anti-Akatsuki schemers.
 
If push truly comes to shove then we'll do something hilariously loud and likely quite dumb two countries over that will cause Itachi to fly out of the village at Mach 2 so that none of them are in the village when we need Mari et al to get the fuck out of there.
 
This isn't a solution but it might buy us some more time. We understand the threat that Itachi is making here: Hazou should be heading home asap.

We also know that a prelude to war has erupted on the 7th path. Between the two obligations, whatever timetable we give Noburi might have to be flexible since it's not entirely in Hazou's hands. Noburi can attest to this not being bullshit from Hazou and so can the toad Sage's.
 
faflec said:
The counterargument, of course, is that Itachi may have a partner with him who takes over when Itachi taps out.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Itachi's current partner is Hidan, a famously lackadaisical idiot.
If Hidan's job is to hang out and watch the manipulator/seductress Mari for 12 hours a day, she's going to fucking demolish him.

Not only is she possibly the best social-spec in the setting, Hidan's the one Akatsuki she has a winning matchup with, especially if she gets the drop on him. And she has all day to arrange getting the drop on him.

Given hours together, she can totally give him the slip, incapacitate, or outright kill him.
 
Last edited:
Left-Hand Mutant said:
Itachi's current partner is Hidan, a famously lackadaisical idiot.
If Hidan's job is to hang out and watch Mari for 12 hours a day, she's going to fucking demolish him.
Not only is she possibly the best social-spec in the setting, Hidan's the one Akatsuki she has a winning matchup with, especially if she gets the drop on him. And she has all day to arrange getting the drop on him.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Itachi's partner may or not be Hidan at this time and Naruto will kill us all if we decide to attack an Akatsuki.
 
Paperclipped said:
Noburi had looked shaken, and for good reason. He wasn't just delivering an urgent message from the Hokage. Uchiha freaking Itachi had apparently visited the Gōketsu main house late at night, politely waited to be escorted through the trap array by a bewildered Kazushi before coming to see Noburi. Only then did the Kinslayer clearly and firmly tell Noburi that Hazō needed to return to Leaf 'at his earliest convenience'.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
@eaglejarl, @Velorien, @Paperclipped, did the way Noburi phrase things, and his overall demeanour, leave Hazou with the impression that Itachi was still there, at the Gouketsu Compound or in Leaf, patiently waiting for Hazou to show up? Alternatively, was Noburi under the impression that Itachi required Hazou's return, then left far away from Leaf to do other things?

What's the Hazoupilot's guess regarding how quickly Itachi expects Hazou to be back? How quickly would Hazou be back, in the world where he really didn't do anything wrong and indeed decides to return to Leaf to be interrogated by Itachi?

Those seem like questions Hazou would have answers to, and some of these answers would help very much with the paranoid frenzy we're talking ourselves into. Like, there are two different vibes that we can get from what's been presented, one is "Itachi is impatiently looming over Noburi's shoulder and plans to stand right there until we show up" and the other is "Itachi has lodged a formal request for Hazou's timely return, and will loop around to interrogating him in the near future". Which is it?
 
Last edited:
Noumero said:
@eaglejarl, @Velorien, @Paperclipped, did the way Noburi phrase things, and his overall demeanour, leave Hazou with the impression that Itachi was still there, at the Gouketsu Compound or in Leaf, patiently waiting for Hazou to show up? Alternatively, was Noburi under the impression that Itachi required Hazou's return, then left far away from Leaf to do other things?

What's the Hazoupilot's guess regarding how quickly Itachi expects Hazou to be back? How quickly would Hazou be back, in the world where he really didn't do anything wrong and indeed decides to return to Leaf to be interrogated by Itachi?

(Those seem like questions Hazou would have answers to, and some of these answers would help very much with the paranoid frenzy we're talking ourselves into.)
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I know this is not going to make things better, but how do we know Noburi wasn't genjutsu'd into thinking, say, that Itachi had left, when in reality he's still right there? I expect that active genjutsu wouldn't carry over, but nothing stops Itachi from genjutsu'ing Noburi into thinking he left while he hides behind him or something.
 
If Itachi was committed enough to preventing Hazou from going missing that he's about to spend days sitting in semi-hostile territory surveilling our house, he'd probably also have bothered to send a threat(ie, get back ASAP or I'll torture your family). It's really not any extra work for him.

Yes, there are possible reasons he might not, but in general, Itachi isn't acting like he's thinking about us running away. He's acting like a busy guy who's checked one thing of his to-to list for today.

Also, in the worlds where he cares enough to dedicate 2 Akatsuki to watching our estate 24/7 for weeks, he's not going to be brushed of easily. He'll absolutely squeeze Hazou of all the info he has, including Naruto's Necromancy plot.
 
faflec said:
I know this is not going to make things better, but how do we know Noburi wasn't genjutsu'd into thinking, say, that Itachi had left, when in reality he's still right there? I expect that active genjutsu wouldn't carry over, but nothing stops Itachi from genjutsu'ing Noburi into thinking he left while he hides behind him or something.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Sure, but that's an additional thing Itachi would need to do, which increases the complexity of that hypothesis and therefore makes it less likely.

Also, why would he do that? A Hazou who ignored Itachi's ultimatum isn't going back no matter what, so "luring him in" by making it look like Itachi isn't that mad won't work. On the other hand, a Hazou who did nothing Itachi would object to might well take his sweet time returning if Itachi makes it sound like he isn't that mad – and then Itachi would need to waste more time secretly shadowing the Gouketsu. Making it seem like appeasing Itachi is a pressing matter doesn't impose additional costs in one case, and speeds things along in another, so he'd have done it if he really planned to sit in Leaf until we're back.

There might be some convoluted reasoning about tricking us into ordering the Gouketsu to exfiltrate quickly so that he doesn't need to waste his time watching them for weeks, but that also sounds convoluted to me. Not infinitesimally likely, granted.

This also doesn't seem Itachi's style. Attacking people with genjutsu when, for all he knows, they actually didn't do anything wrong? That seems like it'd go against his serious-statesman self-image he's trying to maintain.
 
Last edited:
Noumero said:
Sure, but that's an additional thing Itachi would need to do, which increases the complexity of that hypothesis and therefore makes it less likely.

Also, why would he do that? A Hazou who ignored Itachi's ultimatum isn't going back no matter what, so "luring him in" by making it look like Itachi isn't that mad won't work. On the other hand, a Hazou who did nothing Itachi would object to might well take his sweet time returning if Itachi makes it sound like he isn't that mad – and then Itachi would need to waste more time secretly shadowing the Gouketsu.

There might be some convoluted reasoning about tricking us into ordering the Gouketsu to exfiltrate quickly so that he doesn't need to waste his time watching them for weeks, but that also sounds convoluted to me. Not infinitesimally likely, granted.

This also doesn't seem Itachi's style. Attacking people with genjutsu when, for all he knows, they actually didn't do anything wrong? That seems like it'd go against his serious-statesman self-image he's trying to maintain.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I'm thinking more in the context of "Itachi wants to know how Hazou responded ASAP, and will interrogate Noburi in an effort to figure out which Hazou is the true Hazou"
 
faflec said:
I'm thinking more in the context of "Itachi wants to know how Hazou responded ASAP, and will interrogate Noburi in an effort to figure out which Hazou is the true Hazou"
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
What does it matter whether Noburi thinks Itachi is right next to him or not, for these purposes? I guess one possible way we can screw up here is if we told Noburi right now to exfiltrate, but I think we've converged towards leaving a dead drop with the Toad Sages instead. Otherwise, Itachi's ability to read off Hazou's true intentions from Noburi's second-hand interpretation of them seems the same, regardless of which vibe he conveys.
 
Okay. I've been on the discord and so far this is what I think needs to happen for plan "Skywalk out at night" to work. If any of these assumption are untrue, Team Uplift is probably fucked.


1. Itachi's somehow isn't expecting us to dip? And hasn't put any clever though into us doing so? (Somehow?)
2. Itachi and his partner aren't within regular contact with Noburi or any other team members often if at all.
3. Itachi isn't taking hostages or is otherwise leaning on any Goketsu members in any way.
4. His partner isn't taking hostages or otherwise leaning on any Goketsu members in any way.
5. Itachi's clones aren't tracking us around.
6. Itachi isn't personally monitoring us.
7. His partner don't have any unknown/known tracking abilities (like Hidan drinking Noburi's blood for example) or any other clones, reconnaissance tricks that allows them to trivially track Noburi's position throughout the day.
8. Itachi can't hire someone or other ninja to monitor us and notify him when we're leaving.
9. His partner isn't personally monitoring us.
X.This is all important, because Itachi can't be notified within at least an hour of us leaving. This is probably a gross underestimate of the real number. (the lead needed) This is because Itachi has a flier that can travel a lot faster than us. And he can summon crows to head in multiple different directions to search for us. Because skywalkers, we first walk up vertically (say a mile) and then walk out. This takes time. We need to somehow create such a lead that he's unable to spot us, from a high vantage point, and is unable to stumble upon us, given reasonable guesses on where we're headed, using multiple flying as we're so far away. (Note: We can run at close to 20mph? I don't know it we can skywalk at that speed. Crows (his summon type) can fly anywhere from 30mph-60mph)
11. itachi doesn't have access to a super fast crow (Thatcher Cooke) that travels at speeds of up to 60 mph. In that case, we're probably cooked.
12. He doesn't know the direction we're traveling in or have anyone spot us with the direction we're traveling in, and his multiple crow recon summons can't find us. If he does so, he can travel faster than us, guesstimate pretty correctly, and track us down (with high probability). If he can see us, his eyes take us out. (along with other things, but ya know.)
13. His bullshit eyes. His eyes can't see stupid far, they aren't extreme night vision goggles or able to track heat over long distances.
14. It's a cloudy day. We're gonna need the clouds to hide in. A full moon with a cloudless night is death.
15? Hyuga aren't being used on the flyer (?) I've been talked down on this as that they actually can't see that far. So probably not important.
16. Itachi's not using his bullshit eyes to ask us if we're lying or planning on leaving. His eyes can almost certainly catch any lie, and he's not using this ability on us for some reason. (Why?)
17. It should go without saying, but the operation and planning involving multiple people (chunin) should somehow goes off without a hitch (under the nose of two S rank ninja) without leaking and not going tits up.
18. Itachi and his partner aren't immediately torturing Noburi or others when Hazo drops contact looking for any hint on Hazo's next plans or next step on what Hazo might do. (why not? Itachi has bullshit eyes to torture people with? That he can do quickly with?)
19. Itachi doesn't take the obvious action of chopping off Noburi's leg or crippling him (or the others) enough that he (they) can no longer flee if they wanted to, and calling it a day.
20. His partner doesn't cripple anyone either.
21. Itachi doesn't summon multiple scouting crows to fly in all directions to try and find us even when we've lost him.


If all of that somehow miraculously happens, we have a chance of extracting our team. (I'm currently not that optimistic, but we shall see?)


Some ideas on how to increase our odds of successful extract that I've seen:
Hang gliders for extra speed. (The logistics would really screw us, and they're probably DIY and gonna break. But!)
Oro's hidden tunnel.
Make Itachi leave Leaf (blow up some other place Itachi cares about, distract him?)
Leave a dead drop with the Toads for Noburi, have Mari plan really hard.


Also, you should note:

Most likely immediately after:
We'll be declared missing.
All mother of manhunts will be after us.
Leaf will most likely participate in said manhunt.
Chances are (maybe) we'll suffer casualties or not everyone involved will make it.
Leaf may be turned into a smoking crater in revenge/retaliation.


If and (this is my opinion, the likely event) the extraction mission doesn't work:
All our friends die.
We're stuck in the woods with 3 people, no chakra, no FOOM, no medical help, no support and on the clock.
We're missing as well.
They're looking for us.
This is all Naruto's fault.



Is there anything else I'm missing?



TLDR: We really need Itachi and his partner to completely fumble the ball here, and not take any of the very basic, easy and trivial actions (some of which he's already hinted at doing) that they have available to them, for this to work. (Using his eyes to tell if we're lying or plan on leaving, deciding to holding us hostage, crippling us, using multiple crow summons, etc)
And even if he's an idiot, he has a faster flier than us, with small recon crow summons, giving him the ability to recover ok(ish) from any major fumbles he makes.
 
Last edited:
Noumero said:
What does it matter whether Noburi thinks Itachi is right next to him or not, for these purposes? I guess one possible way we can screw up here is if we told Noburi right now to exfiltrate, but I think we've converged towards leaving a dead drop with the Toad Sages instead. Otherwise, Itachi's ability to read off Hazou's true intentions from Noburi's second-hand interpretation of them seems the same, regardless of which vibe he conveys.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This is fair, and assuages my concern in this regard.
 
Reader mode
You must login or register to reply here.
Voting is open
Remove ads
Back
Top