Step 8. Tell him about the clash with the Leaf border crossing. Be apologetic, but don't grovel. If he has the nerve to assume moral superiority, make a comment about our comrades in the Village Hidden in the Swamp. (I think J will respect this more than a false submission.)
c. Finish it off complimenting Keiko for being accepting as a summoner without getting too bogged down in details and that we convinced the VHitM to let us take the scroll voluntarily.
Emphasize on how we were able to convince an isolated ~400yr old village to give up their summoning scroll/ancient religious idol/purpose of their existence. Seriously, that shit's crazy.
No, stress that we jumped the gun when we decided to infiltrate the hotel instead of waiting for Joutarou to leave. That was the true mistake we made, not our pride but our overwhelming sense of urgency.
Make sure to explain why; e.g., we move to Rice from our position, making sure to avoid the Hidden Village; then we find small villages and ask around for directions.
Nope nope nope we were missing-nin from Mist setting up camp on Leaf territory they had every moral right to vaporize our buttholes.
(snip)
No, stress that we jumped the gun when we decided to infiltrate the hotel instead of waiting for Joutarou to leave. That was the true mistake we made, not our pride but our overwhelming sense of urgency.
I'll tell you what... remember that these are just suggestions to the group as a whole. These are not things that we are saying to Jariaya but things that we are saying that we should say to Jaraiya. Perhaps Mari and others will jump in with your corrections, but I think this is how Hazou may be feeling about it all. It's a subtle difference I know.
I'll tell you what... remember that these are just suggestions to the group as a whole. These are not things that we are saying to Jariaya but things that we are saying that we should say to Jaraiya. Perhaps Mari and others will jump in with your corrections, but I think this is how Hazou may be feeling about it all. It's a subtle difference I know.
The original plan had us dropping by some border town or other for info and what not. While we wait for Keiko to return, what's the opinion on swinging by someplace, w/o crossing border, and checking for rumors and stuff? If nothing else, we still wanna know what things are like in Iron.
E: Maybe get some med supplies? Paper? We should be so lucky, I know...
Maybe just send Hazou and Noburi, as the talkative duo, since Mari (all of us, really) will want to wait for Keiko's return.
No, stress that we jumped the gun when we decided to infiltrate the hotel instead of waiting for Joutarou to leave. That was the true mistake we made, not our pride but our overwhelming sense of urgency.
This. Pride would've been knocking down the door to their suite, going "Surrender now, or prepare to fight!" We were eager, and maybe too fixated on the immediate goal, but it wasn't pride that caught us there.
I'll tell you what... remember that these are just suggestions to the group as a whole. These are not things that we are saying to Jariaya but things that we are saying that we should say to Jaraiya. Perhaps Mari and others will jump in with your corrections, but I think this is how Hazou may be feeling about it all. It's a subtle difference I know.
I have to pretend that Hazou is a separate person whose thought process I am trying to emulate given my understanding of his background, drives, and desires. I don't know any other way to roleplay.
I mean, maybe, but as the hivemind get to pick that, largely, so if we come up with ideas that are agreed upon as good let's not throw them out with cries of 'it's what my character would do!' I'm in agreement with @faflec and @Muer'ci here.
"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."
"I know you feel you don't have connections with the rest of the team as meaningful as your feelings for Inoue-sensei. We want to work together to change that, if you're willing, because we all believe our friendships with you are worth continuing to build."
J: "Oh, you mean that long-term incursion of a sizeable foreign military force into my country? Next excuse please."
This might be re-framed more productively as 'all of us kill and lose comrades, it's one of the sad realities of ninja life, but it's a sad reality we'd really like to help you change if you'll let us'.
I genuinely think we should avoid bringing this up explicitly. Having us, and by extension Jiraiya/Leaf, maintain a better relationship with VHitMo is better in the long run, which means keeping our word to Takahashi unless we want to raise everyone's deception to like 25 or hope he dies mysteriously before talking to us again.
If we do end up revealing more than "one of the conditions of obtaining the scroll was to not talk about obtaining the scroll, we'd like to keep our word, everyone here knows you could force us to break it but we hope you'd rather have assets whose word means something", we should stress that it will probably work out better if he doesn't interact with them directly and instead focuses on preparing the diplomatic scene for their arrival.
Hell, I'd be happy to tell him. That guy in Tea screwed us over. I seem to recall a few people advocating for just taking the info straight to J if we succeeded at that mission.
The beauty of this quest is that none of us have to try to model Hazou - his IC personality is a result of all of our OOC selves, so we can just be ourselves
I mean, maybe, but as the hivemind get to pick that, largely, so if we come up with ideas that are agreed upon as good let's not throw them out with cries of 'it's what my character would do!' I'm in agreement with
into the wikipage but it won't let me because it think I am inserting spam. The link stuff does not work, because I didn't test it, so I have to removed it.
No, stress that we jumped the gun when we decided to infiltrate the hotel instead of waiting for Joutarou to leave. That was the true mistake we made, not our pride but our overwhelming sense of urgency.
After some further thought, I don't think the thread itself is in total agreement about "what we should have done". Consequently I think the best way to represent is for Hazou to offer a couple of the most common beliefs, which are that we either should have given up or we should have waited until Joutarou left, but leave it open for the rest of the team to add their own spin before the final result is selected IC for Jiraiya. It's frankly not that important a detail to the overall plan.
I have to pretend that Hazou is a separate person whose thought process I am trying to emulate given my understanding of his background, drives, and desires. I don't know any other way to roleplay.
This isn't roleplay; it's us (the hivemind) literally optimizing Hazou's actions. Think of it as us reading the story, then deciding "Result X is the best possible result", then deciding "Plan Y is the best possible way to get Result X", then making Hazou do Plan Y to get Result X.
Sweet. A couple more things for consideration before I need to go for the evening:
Maybe open with info on chakra-laced rain and the fact that in Tea we found another group likely tied to Orochimaru (the Hydra Foundation) - may be involved in medical and psychological experimentation
When we hand the dead Leaf nin over, mention that we wanted to make sure the families got closure (and Konoha didn't need to worry about an enemy having got their hands on Leaf bodies/techniques)
We used his code words to try and make sure we were not acting against one of his agents
We tried pretty damn hard to talk our way out of that fight
E: We'd be happy to make anonymous reparations to the families of everyone involved, including/especially the civilians
@Briefvoice Just an FYI but the next update may or may not affect the plan in some way; I may copy+paste your plan if you disappear. Please don't be mad.
The ideas for things to do with seals continue. I tried to restrict myself to things that might be more immediately attainable.
Clone Missile - Use a clone tougher than the user eg earth clone. Use force assisted movement via strategically placed seals to enhance the effectiveness of the clone.
Will need to be able to quickly apply seals to clone.
A certain amount of damage inflicted to the clone as a result of the force assist is acceptable.
Instant Wardrobe Machine - A box covered in storage seals on the inside. Possibly has handles etc to assist with precise positioning of the user.
Relies on perfectly positioning the user so that storage seals can safely unseal clothing and equipment directly onto them.
May need to be custom built for a single user in order to achieve correct release positioning.
Ideally the clothing and equipment should be stored by taking them off the user, in order to ensure proper positioning when released.
The entire machine is likely quite large and would need to be stored itself in order to make use of it in the field.
A simpler version might just drop items of clothing from above and let gravity equip them.
Mobile Armour Machine - At the most basic level, create a hollow block of rock. Inside are Button Seals that create a directed explosion pushing the block and its contents in the desired direction. Explosions would need to repeat every time a button is pressed.
Care must be taken to ensure that the force being directed at the rock is small enough for those inside it to handle.
Controlled gradual destruction of the rock might be advantageous as a means of exposing new directed force Seals to replace the used one.
Weight and friction may require some lifting force accompany every movement.
The need to enter and exit the rock may introduce additional weak points.
False Gate - A fortification made to resemble an entrance. At the entrance use civilian safe levels of force to expel anyone attempting entrance harmlessly back out. Force walls punish a speedy approach. Use of light generated by seal might allow the impression of passage while still allowing the place to be properly walled in.
Sweet. A couple more things for consideration before I need to go for the evening:
Maybe open with info on chakra-laced rain and the fact that in Tea we found another group likely tied to Orochimaru (the Hydra Foundation) - may be involved in medical and psychological experimentation
I am not convinced that we have an in-character rationale tying this to Orochimaru. However, I can include it as an option to float to the rest of the group and ask them if they think Orochimaru is involved and it is worth bringing up. I'll see what I can edit in.
When we hand the dead Leaf nin over, mention that we wanted to make sure the families got closure (and Konoha didn't need to worry about an enemy having got their hands on Leaf bodies/techniques)
We used his code words to try and make sure we were not acting against one of his agents
We tried pretty damn hard to talk our way out of that fight
E: We'd be happy to make anonymous reparations to the families of everyone involved, including/especially the civilians
Writing it as something that Hazou says to Mari allows us the emotional satisfaction of saying it aloud without the suicidalness of actually saying it to Jaraiya.
If we drain bodies of water, that's going to show up as chakra deficient fishes. Someone might pick up on that as clue, especially if they know we have a Wakahisa bloodlimit user.
Same thing for PMYF kunai marks.
Track covering trick might not work that well if they keep seeing the same thing over and over again.
We also have no methodology for randomization to reduce any patterns that we used to cover our movement.
Writing it as something that Hazou says to Mari allows us the emotional satisfaction of saying it aloud without the suicidalness of actually saying it to Jaraiya.
It also brings about with it petulant childishness which is also something we don't want our team to associate us with. Why should the emotional satisfaction of a character who is literally a meatsack-avatar of our hivemind matter to us? Or are you talking about your personal emotional satisfaction?
It also brings about with it petulant childishness which is also something we don't want our team to associate us with. Why should the emotional satisfaction of a character who is literally a meatsack-avatar of our hivemind matter to us? Or are you talking about your personal emotional satisfaction?
My personal emotional satisfaction... perhaps those of others. (Sticks out tongue at faflec's name on the screen and makes a loud, obnoxious fart noise.)
If we drain bodies of water, that's going to show up as chakra deficient fishes. Someone might pick up on that as clue, especially if they know we have a Wakahisa bloodlimit user.
Same thing for PMYF kunai marks.
Track covering trick might not work that well if they keep seeing the same thing over and over again.
We also have no methodology for randomization to reduce any patterns that we used to cover our movement.
Who is going to be able to detect chakra being drained by the skimming of naturally replenishing chakra of wildlife in the area. If anything it would lead to an increase of chakra monsters as the animals have their chakra influenced to replenish more often than would naturally occur. Sensors of chakra in its pure form are rare.
We might be able to have nature take care of our evidence by coating PMYF tags and targets in a material that animals would want to gather or made fully of meat to further mask long distance stealth travel. It would be in line with our habits thus far and there are not shortage of chakra beasts to harvest the required materials for this.
I have seen no mention of the information we gained from the tattoo message as one of our assets by which we could buy forgiveness. Every little bit could aid in the greater understanding of long term neighboring nations. This part could be just what Leaf needs for breaking a Cypher of which they only had part of the code for.
I have seen no mention of the information we gained from the tattoo message as one of our assets by which we could buy forgiveness. Every little bit could aid in the greater understanding of long term neighboring nations. This part could be just what Leaf needs for breaking a Cypher of which they only had part of the code for.
She seems to have held him in pretty high esteem, given how strongly she supported keeping our promise to stay away for a year, and some of the other things she's said about him:
I'm in agreement with 
