Maybe include a line that we need a day to disarm all the traps, safely dismantle our equipment, and pack things up? Itachi doesn't want a sealing failure, and if we just hard-stop a sealing experiment, then that's what can happen... especially if he thinks we have a couple different ones running at the same time (which we do).
It buys us time, and it's true (we do need to figure out a way to hide the runes), so there's no deceit check to pass.
"Give us a day to safely dismantle our equipment/experiments and pack everything up, then we'll head back."
Mari should shoot her shot if she can do it without hurting her chances to escape. Success or failure would give us valuable information.
Do Itachi's SCs have genjutsu counters? Are crow clones immune?
Does Itachi predict danger to his clone by using sharingan with his main body? Realizes a minute ahead when it will pop?
If Mari takes out his clone with Genjutsu out of view, delay physically popping it.
Fill its mental consequences and stress track. Wait to pop it until it is too late to respond with precognition. Call in a Yamanka to scan its mind before popping.
Suspect the more real these dangers are to Akatsuki the less likely they are to dither around villages.
[ ] Plan Fragment: Bug Out (Redux)
Word Count: ???
Sanity Check with Kagome and Kei
Discuss Naruto's orders with Kagome and Kei -- we're going missing for real.
We need to exfiltrate the rest of Uplift from Leaf
Hazou's research speed is significantly slowed without access to Noburi.
Naruto is incapable of standing up to Itachi, it's time to get Mari, Noburi, and Yuno out before Itachi starts torturing them.
Hazou's best current plan is to send a letter to Naruto/Itachi telling them we're on our way back.
At the same time however, secretly pass Mari encoded written orders to take Noburi and Yuno and GTFO of Leaf.
This might be best accomplished by skywalking directly away from the Estate at night
However, if Mari fears Itachi is constantly placing the Goketsu Estate under effective observation, it might be better to disguise themselves as civvies and escape that way.
Or take a chakra beast extermination missions and slip away then.
Mari is in command and has discretion based on the situation on the ground.
Only once they're out of Leaf, and confident they weren't followed, they are to send Noburi to Toad for further instructions
Write our letters with Kei's assistance and send then via the next drop on the Seventh Path.
Discuss the precautions (oaths, restricted locations, Boss permissions) we're going to need to take on the Seventh Path to remove that as an avenue of communication from Leaf.
Begin setting them in motion as soon as the letter to Mari is sent.
Kei, will Pantsaa make this easy for you?
_____________
Figured I'd toss this out early. Some form of it is likely to make it into my plan today.
If we're gonna do the jail break, emphasis extremely clearly that Noburi is the one they need to protect. If anything goes wrong, the others need to be willing to put up a fighting retreat, so he gets out. And if it goes really, really poorly, Noburi needs to automatically reverse summon to the 7th path with no plan to return. If Noburi dies it's game over.
Yeah posts of that type replying to many disparate individual points should be avoided. It's known as spaghetti posting and can possibly attract mod attention under Rule 4 when done excessively.
Thumb your nose at the mods and make the post anyway
Or just make a first post, replying to someone, wait for someone else to post, then make your second post, replying to the second person, etc. This thread has fairly regular interaction, so you typically don't need to wait for very long.
Good luck, though, the mods are fairly incomprehensible about where and when they slap someone. For example, I once got an Official Notice for a post that pinged 4 people (voters for an action plan I had written up). Is it any wonder we tend to have so few planmakers?
Hazou: "Well, you've got the FCs, the ADRs, the RRBs, the TRs, the SPs, some CATEARS, and I've dabbled in FBotEM for Uplift... I've also decided that I should probably squeeze in FDRs, STARS, AoO, and the BFs somewhere into my schedule."
Discuss Naruto's orders with Noburi -- we're improvising. Naruto's game plan has collapsed immediately.
All four of us are going missing and we're immediately dropping all contact with Leaf.
Any and all contact with Leaf could lead to Itachi using our family as leverage.
Noburi is going to be stuck in the 7th path for the foreseeable future.
Hazou's research speed is significantly slowed without access to Noburi's chakra.
Hazou's is going to have to learn technique hacking (TH) sufficiently to create a animal to human Chakra convertor using Minatosealing, so we can use Noburi's bloodline on the 7th path.
This means we need private TH tutoring from the Toads.
Talk with the Toad Boss.
Explain our situation and why we desperately need TH tutoring. Without their help, everyone we love will die on the Human Path or be conquered.
Show Naruto's orders and if needed Minato's notes.
It's a desperate gamble by us, against a more powerful foe, and we're all out of options.
Please help us save the human world just like Hazo helped save the 7th path against the Dragons.
Frame it like calling in a debt/favor if Kei thinks it will help.
What we're gonna need
We'll need a few months of serious protection against Akatsuki on the 7th path, as we'll be relatively stationary during the private TN tutoring.
Give them the dossier on their abilities and capabilities.
Underscore how seriously the job of keeping us safe needs to be taken until the tutoring is finished.
Akatsuki doesn't screw around.
After the tutoring is done (a few months) we'll skywalk out and disappear, so you'll no longer need to protect us. It's not for forever. It will only be for a handful of weeks.
Discuss any and all precautions (oaths, restricted locations, Boss permissions) we're going to need to take on the Seventh Path to remove that as an avenue of communication from Leaf.
Do this with Dogs/Pangolin as well.
Figured I'd toss this out early. If anyone has critiques/ideas/things I should change I'd be happy to hear them.
Or just make a first post, replying to someone, wait for someone else to post, then make your second post, replying to the second person, etc. This thread has fairly regular interaction, so you typically don't need to wait for very long.
Maybe include a line that we need a day to disarm all the traps, safely dismantle our equipment, and pack things up? Itachi doesn't want a sealing failure, and if we just hard-stop a sealing experiment, then that's what can happen... especially if he thinks we have a couple different ones running at the same time (which we do).
If we're gonna do the jail break, emphasis extremely clearly that Noburi is the one they need to protect. If anything goes wrong, the others need to be willing to put up a fighting retreat, so he gets out. And if it goes really, really poorly, Noburi needs to automatically reverse summon to the 7th path with no plan to return. If Noburi dies it's game over.
It's not game over, it's just much harder to win without him. I think this is overspecified. We aren't in the field and we don't need to be calling the shots. I think this should be left up to Mari.
It's not game over, it's just much harder to win without him. I think this is overspecified. We aren't in the field and we don't need to be calling the shots. I think this should be left up to Mari.
Hazou's is going to have to learn TN sufficiently to create a animal to human Chakra convertor using Minatosealing, so we can use Noburi's bloodline on the 7th path.
This means we need private TN tutoring from the Toads.
In addition to that, the general timeline to head back is two weeks, but could you add a line that argues for Itachi not holding us too tightly to that because of Dog's involvement in the current Pangolin-Hyena war?
It's just that the last time they had enough power and tried to fix the world their approach was to attempt some kind of ritual that would fundamentally alter humanity without its consent.
Do you think the pre-Pain status quo had less consent violation (ex: farmers being taxed without consent) than the ritual? And that our alternatives for allies violate consent less (ex: Leaf taxing farmers)?
Do you think circumstances and potential circumstances haven't changed enough (special ritual time every 1000 years having passed, amity, potential debt if hazou helps resurrections, possibly a willingness to be advised/informed of alternative ideas by the hidden villages) such that Pain's best method to achieve his goals still involves violating consent in amounts above the acceptable amount of consent violation?
Bring up the possibility of exfiltrating Tenten and Miyuki as well (likely just by having Mari send them coded messages to exfiltrate separately – they're almost certainly not under Itachi's observations even if the Gouketsu are, so they should be able to just take ordinary missions), and leave it up to Kei's judgement. Even if we decide not to do it, we don't want to pass off as callous towards Kei's own connections.
Wait a day or so before we tell Mari to exfiltrate. Let her know it's OK to take a few days to prep if she needs.
Tell her it's her judgement on who, if anyone, else to bring.
Suggest removing all goodies from the Goketsu clan compound, especially unrevealed parts of our combat kit like MARS and WWB.
If she can safely steal goodies on the way out, that's a bonus.(visibly burns bridges with Leaf, acting like real missing-nin would)
In general, communicate the situation, then give her the freedom to do her thing, and trust her judgement.
Give this another look-over. Some parts need to be cut, but the general instructions for Mari are great.
Do you think the pre-Pain status quo had less consent violation (ex: farmers being taxed without consent) than the ritual? And that our alternatives for allies violate consent less (ex: Leaf taxing farmers)?
Do you think circumstances and potential circumstances haven't changed enough (special ritual time every 1000 years having passed, amity, potential debt if hazou helps resurrections, possibly a willingness to be advised/informed of alternative ideas by the hidden villages) such that Pain's best method to achieve his goals still involves violating consent in amounts above the acceptable amount of consent violation?
The difference between Pain and us is that we only use force when we have to, whereas AFAIK Pain went straight for force. I don't think we can trust him, and I really don't want to trust the rest of Akatsuki.
The difference between Pain and us is that we only use force when we have to, whereas AFAIK Pain went straight for force. I don't think we can trust him, and I really don't want to trust the rest of Akatsuki.
HazōNoDomes4U (yes, he had been very clear about the childish spelling) was working on a rune to prevent the formation of Air Domes within a wide area. This, of course, would shut down skywalkers in the affected area, thereby causing anyone using them to experience, as Gōketsu Michiki might have stated it, 'a rapid unplanned terrain interaction causing dispreferred levels of cranial widening.' Translated from engineerese: plummeting into the unforgiving bosom of Mother Earth and spreading the contents of one's skull over a twenty-foot radius. Given that at least some members of Akatsuki used skywalkers for aerial mobility, this was a potential assassination option.
HazōEvenBiggerPackRat was working on the Storage Rune, an upscaled version of the normal storage seal that would have a vastly larger weight- and volume limit. Hopefully, although perhaps not with this version, it would be possible to get around the other limitation of storage seals: the inability to store anything with chakra. With luck maybe they could put a living person into a time-locked storage space, thereby eliminating them as a threat. Again, a useful tool against arrogant demigods who were too strong for Hazō to attack head-on.
HazōJuiceUpGuy was working on the Capacitor Rune, something that Hazō figured was going to need very careful presentation to Noburi. It would gather a huge amount of ambient chakra...and do nothing. Hazō could almost hear his brother's reactions, and the most likely was mockery over the uselessness of the rune, followed by sharp-edged demands about whether or not Hazō was trying to make Noburi obsolete as a chakra source. The answer to that was, well, yes. Eventually, he wanted a rune that would pull in ambient chakra, prepare it for human use, and then allow any ninja to pull the chakra out and into their coils. No more of that pesky drinking necessary. Hazō was definitely going to need to talk to Mari about how to present this to Noburi. Regardless, having a way to charge up allied ninja in preparation for ambushing Akatsuki was obviously useful.
Hazō Prime had reserved the best rune for himself. He was working on the Space Stretch Rune, a rune that would do to space what his Time Runes had done for time: extend it for those within the effect. Someone inside the affected area might measure it as being fifteen yards across while someone outside the area might measure it as being ten yards across. He didn't have an explicit anti-Akatsuki use in mind but he was sure he could figure one out. Or Out, as the case might be.
He chuckled under his breath, drawing a quick glance from Kagome-sensei who was scribing seals a short distance away. Hazō shook his head to say that it was nothing; his teacher gave him an annoyed glare that carried with it an entire sermon on the dangers of letting one's thoughts wander while doing chakra work on seals (or, in this case, runes), but he went back to his own task with merely a sniff.
The silent lesson was well taken; Hazō pushed his distractions aside and focused on the rune he was working.
He wasn't actually trying to infuse the thing, merely working chakra manipulations to check the effects of calculations he had made yesterday. He could see how the chakra structure of the rune would work...or, at least, sometimes he could see it. The chakra construct that embodied a rune was a complex thing, the simplest explosive rune existing in no less than seventeen dimensions. Visualizing something like that in a normal human brain wasn't feasible. You could model it mathematically, you could encode multiple dimensions into a condensed and approximated form the same way "250 miles that way" specified the path to Leaf in a more condensed form than the full directions which would take into account things like terrain obstructions. No, a normal brain could not capture the true form of a rune's chakra construct in one go.
Hazō's brain, of course, was not normal.
Years before, he had gazed upon the Pangolin Summoning Scroll and allowed his Iron Nerve bloodline to store a mental copy of the scroll's seal the way it stored a copy of every other seal he came across. Summoning scrolls, however, were no mere seals. They were something more, something no living person understood or could create. The attempt had cracked his mind, very slightly and in a very useful way. That crack had been torn gapingly wide when he gazed upon the mountain-sized Great Seal in Arachnid, the one that held b4ck the Drag0ns.
He reached through that crack, pressing his awareness into the hyperreality that lay beyond the Paint that was the quote real unquote world. It was a place of madness, of sonic ankles and searing velvet that scoured at the rude intrusion of human awareness with bristles of daydream and spoiled milk.
He pressed aside the silent din with the skill of long practice and took hold, spinning out a tendril of madness and weaving it into a preliminary form, a notiona1 basket that would provide the general structure of his rune's construct. The basket twisted as he built it, spinning through twelve dimensions of apple and sour and dirty hair and sweat-soaked sheets. He enc0mpassed all of it, widening his gaze to perceive all of the basket at the same time, and began to feed ch.kra through it.
The nonworld around him continued to leer and chant and susurrate with charcoal strength in an unguided(?) attempt to break him down and pull h1m ap@rt..
Wait.
Long discipllln3 held the rune's construct stabl3 as Hazō considered what he was perceiving around himhimhimmmself.
The distractions weren't entirely unguided.
Across the Paint, he blinked in shock.
There was S̶͈̯̘̹̰̈̂ō̵̘̖̰ṃ̶̻͈͍̻̌e̶̦̤̾͝ẗ̵̹̅̃́͘͜h̴̛̯̠̪̽̅̋̍i̴̧͌̈́̈̓n̴͊͜g̸̰̹̝̯̜ ͂there. Not an ent12ty, not a being like hE was, but an awareness nonetheless. The movement of n0nࠓêäl1ty around him was clearly not that of random chance. No, it wasn't thaaat there saw S̶͈̯̘̹̰̈̂ō̵̘̖̰ṃ̶̻͈͍̻̌e̶̦̤̾͝ẗ̵̹̅̃́͘͜h̴̛̯̠̪̽̅̋̍i̴̧͌̈́̈̓n̴͊͜g̸̰̹̝̯̜ ereht was S̶͈̯̘̹̰̈̂ō̵̘̖̰ṃ̶̻͈͍̻̌e̶̦̤̾͝ẗ̵̹̅̃́͘͜h̴̛̯̠̪̽̅̋̍i̴̧͌̈́̈̓n̴͊͜g̸̰̹̝̯̜ there, there was S̶͈̯̘̹̰̈̂ō̵̘̖̰ṃ̶̻͈͍̻̌e̶̦̤̾͝ẗ̵̹̅̃́͘͜h̴̛̯̠̪̽̅̋̍i̴̧͌̈́̈̓n̴͊͜g̸̰̹̝̯̜. As in, all of 'there' was the S̶͈̯̘̹̰̈̂ō̵̘̖̰ṃ̶̻͈͍̻̌e̶̦̤̾͝ẗ̵̹̅̃́͘͜h̴̛̯̠̪̽̅̋̍i̴̧͌̈́̈̓n̴͊͜g̸̰̹̝̯̜ and the S̶͈̯̘̹̰̈̂ō̵̘̖̰ṃ̶̻͈͍̻̌e̶̦̤̾͝ẗ̵̹̅̃́͘͜h̴̛̯̠̪̽̅̋̍i̴̧͌̈́̈̓n̴͊͜g̸̰̹̝̯̜ was all there was.
Hazō's m1nd shredded as something came from the S̶͈̯̘̹̰̈̂ō̵̘̖̰ṃ̶̻͈͍̻̌e̶̦̤̾͝ẗ̵̹̅̃́͘͜h̴̛̯̠̪̽̅̋̍i̴̧͌̈́̈̓n̴͊͜g̸̰̹̝̯̜. It wasn't sound, or smell, or touch. S̶͈̯̘̹̰̈̂ō̵̘̖̰ṃ̶̻͈͍̻̌e̶̦̤̾͝ẗ̵̹̅̃́͘͜h̴̛̯̠̪̽̅̋̍i̴̧͌̈́̈̓n̴͊͜g̸̰̹̝̯̜ w4s aLl of r3al!ty; i7 couLd nO moer touch Hazō than cOuLd rElaality. He felt h1mmms3l c min a p a r t @7 7|-|3 7|-|3 7|-|3 7|-|3 7|-|3 s{R4 s{R4P s{R4Ping T0V{|-| of—
Unreality blinked around him and softened as nothing and everything changed. The petrichor color of the madness that swaddled him now seemed familiar and logical. Something̸̰̹̝̯̜ stood between him and the hyperreality, shielding his fragile humanity from the grinding tastes of F4# and the plunging heights of starlight that carried him along the river of ideation and reification, his runic construct bobbing lazily beside him.
His perceptions had sharpened, and weakened. His awareness ('sight' was entirely the wrong word) stretched farther and penetrated what had previously been stygian pits of irony and dazzling rafts of blind indifference. Shapes moved around him, most of them vastly larger than himself, so large that they could grind buildings or planets to dust with a casual bump, but some so small they seemed able to slip between the fibers of his combat vest without noticing that the vest existed. They weren't anything that a mind from his side of the Paint could have perceived; they existed in too many directions and their composition defied language. He couldn't tell if they were hyperreality's inanimate icebergs or genius denizens or blind and hungry animals—indeed, there were undoubtedly all of those things and more besides. Only now, with the intercession of the S̶͈̯̘̹̰̈̂ō̵̘̖̰ṃ̶̻͈͍̻̌e̶̦̤̾͝ẗ̵̹̅̃́͘͜h̴̛̯̠̪̽̅̋̍i̴̧͌̈́̈̓n̴͊͜g̸̰̹̝̯̜ did he realize that those things had always been here.
Sage's name, how arrogant could one be? He had thought he understood this 'place', that he could come and go as he pleased, using the madness of it to enhance his abilities with seals, his power to test them against the cracks in the Paint in order to find how they would best fit. He had never thought that there were Things here, eating away at his brain for every instant he worked. Every time he had used this power he had suffered a blinding headache for days, one that got worse every time he even thought about anything related to sealing. He had believed it was simply part of what it meant for a puny mortal to be exposed to the Out, but now he knew better.
They had been eating him.
Every time he had come here to practice the best ways of cracking open his reality and rendering it more easily accessible by these...Things, they had been there. Their passage had buffeted and battered him constantly as they crowded close, swimming through his brain and defecating ideas and understanding while pressing obscene and defiled bodies against the crack in his mind that almost but not quite gave them entrance to his home.
Now, he was hidden from them, and for that he was more grateful than anything.
Thank you, he thought as loudly as he could. Hyperreality made no reply.
He turned his attention away from the Things and focused it back on the runic construct. It made more sense now, the willow snow dimension connecting clearly and cleanly with the fruit whirlwind kick. It made sense, in the same way that a kata made sense after you had practiced it a thousand times. In fact, runes seemed far more logical than seals. He was mapping dozens of dimensions down into something that could fit across the Paint; why make the extra effort to fit it into two dimensions when he could use the third as well? Honestly, it made so much more sense that he could barely remember how he had done the two-dimensional squishing in the first place.
Far away, on the other side of the Paint, his body snorted in amusement. Here, in this nonplace, his mind focused on the rune that would twist space like taffy.
It was well.
Author's Note: Good news! Hazō has exchanged his 'Summoning Scroll Acoylyte' stunt for the 'Disciple of the Beyond' stunt! This is an exchange, so there is no XP cost. The change increases Hazō's Primordial Sealing skill (the one used for runes) at the cost of reducing his Sealing skill (the one used for paper-based seals).
Better news! After much discussion, the QMs have decided that the crossover bonus between disciplines (e.g. Sealing and Primoridal Sealing) is innate, not a buff. As such, it does not require a 100 XP combination stunt in order to work alongside Disciple of the Beyond. You may rejoice now.
XP and Brevity award: 0 The vote was for an interlude, not a plan.
"GM had fun" XP: 5
It is now about 8pm and your check-in with Noburi is in an hour. This update covered 1 day.
[X] Action Plan: Take The Fam And Go
Wordcount: ~350
Tell Noburi we'll disassemble camp and return in a little over two weeks.
Sanity/Optimize with K/K/S
Discuss and optimize the plan. follow Kei's advice.
Will Pantsa abandon Kei if we do this?
How can we alleviate that risk?
Discuss the precautions (oaths, restricted locations, Boss permissions) we're going to need to take on the Seventh Path to remove that as an avenue of communication from Leaf.
Once the letter to Mari is sent, start enacting those protocols.
~30 hours later, send a ciphered message to Mari. (have Kei send it alongside her other mail?)
"We're going missing. anyone not with us is potential leverage. in the next few days, exfiltrate team Uplift and whoever else you find it wise to include."
More people/resources are good, but only if they don't blow the exfiltration.
Burning bridges and cutting ties is good, but clan Goketsu and uplift projects collapsing is bad. Looking like we care about anything left behind is also bad. It's a balancing act, figure it out.
Some possible suggestions of ways to extract value and cut ties. use you judgement, and don't risk ruining the exfiltration.
exfiltrate people (Goketsu ninja/Tenten/Ino /etc)
loot the Uzumaki clan vault, especially of seals.
loot anything else of value that won't immediately blow your exfiltration.
steal the Monkey Scroll
Steal/Destroy any sensitive seals / jutsu scrolls.
We don't want to empower Akasuki or reveal our abilities.
Include notes from Kagome on how to remove/destroy any sensitive materials in the Black Archive(Kagome's Bedroom)
Once you're confident you've made a clean getaway, give Noburi the password "Firefly" and send him to the Toad Sages.
(Toad Sages: check Noburi for signs of combat/genjutsu)
(Toad Sages: if he has the password and everything seems normal, direct them to the Chakra Cave in Wind, otherwise, direct them to our old camp in Snow)
Start heading toward that chakra-pool-cave in Wind
Dogs
Let Cannai know what's up
Ask for an Elite bodyguard dog
Offer contracts to all the dogs from the last raid.
Better news! After much discussion, the QMs have decided that the crossover bonus between disciplines is innate, not a buff. As such, it does not require a 100 XP combination stunt in order to work alongside Disciple of the Beyond. You may rejoice now.
The difference between Pain and us is that we only use force when we have to, whereas AFAIK Pain went straight for force. I don't think we can trust him, and I really don't want to trust the rest of Akatsuki.
