You really want to put a confession in writing, then to pass through an unknown chain of hands? Let's not.
We do have ciphers, which vastly reduce the chance of unknown parties getting access to the data. Not to mention the pangolin and toads are trusted as long as you're only trying to get info Jiraiya. I mean, who the fuck else are they going to leak to?
What you are missing from your calculus is that our team consists of 13-14 year old kids. This leads to two things:
This is a death world. 13-14 year olds can, and occasionally do, become Jounin. We should expect him to treat him like adults with respect to our maturity.
Are there any meaningful precautions we can take against Jiraya's attempts to exert control over us? Here are some things he might try:
- Split the team apart
- Take a member of the team as a semi-permanent hostage
- Insert additional members into the team
I think of that set, splitting the team or taking a hostage are the most likely options. The only way he'll add people to our team is if they can overwhelm us in case of betrayal. Any set of people capable of doing that would have to be equivalent to a low S-class ninja, and would likely be better used elsewhere.
More likely, amongst that set, is the option to split the team apart and integrate individuals into other teams. It does break the synergies we have going, but frankly our team could be useful in immense numbers of other contexts. Inoue is a jounin, with all that entails. Kagome is a good sealing teacher and, with a bit of socializing, would likely reduce the casualty rate among sealing students by a significant margin. Keiko has her summons. Akane is still functionally loyal to Leaf, just a bit stupid, she'll be able to reintegrate. Noburi is a chakra bottle and a water natured medic, he could easily become one of their best combat-capable mednin with time.
If he does do that, Hazou is the wildcard. He's smart as fuck, if inexperienced and lacking knowledge, but his trustworthiness will always be questionable.
The other option, taking a hostage, leaves them with Keiko. She's got the largest disparity between value and capability. She has a summoning contract but is still has solidly chuunin level skill. Fuck if I know what Inoue will do if that is what Jiraiya goes for.
Is there any value in preparing a suicide switch for Hazou or our team members? Maybe tattoo a flawed explosive tag inside our mouth and if suicide really becomes the best option, just infuse it with chakra.
You don't really need anything more than a needle and ink to make a tattoo. Especially if we don't need to be good enough to actually work.
I don't like the idea of a suicide switch at all, but I'd like to point out that even with normal seals it's not just the ink image that matters but the order and type of swirls you make. Tattooing is an entirely different process, and would probably require us to re-research every seal.
This is fine if we only want a suicide switch, since the fail-cthulhu should get us, but it might just do something harmless or non-fatal.
"We want to contribute to fixing this, but it's very clear that we're a chakra-bull in a china shop when it comes to international politics. If you point us the right direction, we'll happily throw our efforts into making the world better."
I like this a lot, and frankly it's a sentiment we should probably try to convey.
Anything might happen in the future, not having any contingencies feels like giving up to me. I mean, imagine if our leash gets passed on to Orochimaru or Danzo? Or maybe Kabuto is our new handler?
Okay, that's scary. I'd rather some other method of suicide, other than a seal in our mouths, but honestly that's a pretty good case for having something.
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